King Drust looked about him as the Venicone warband climbed the bare hillside high above the doomed barbarian camp, scanning the empty ground to either side before glancing back over his shoulder, panting with the effort of the climb up the wooded slope below. The forest’s upper limit was five hundred paces behind the rearmost of the Venicone warriors, whose initial headlong charge from the embattled camp had quickly been reduced to a long loping stride as they had weaved their way through the densely packed trees. His warriors were marching in a long, straggling column as they climbed the mountain’s unforgiving slope, moving in family groups of spearmen and archers whose breath steamed around them in the cold morning air. He spat on to the hillside’s thin turf and grunted a comment at the leader of his personal bodyguard jogging along beside him.
‘Perhaps we got away clean, but I doubt it. Those Roman bastards don’t give up that easily.’
The other man grimaced at the pain gnawing at his chest, as the effort of the long climb started to tell upon him.
‘Aye, and we’re leaving a trail that a blind man could follow.’
The king nodded, looking back at the treeline again.
‘Their soldiers will never catch us, not over this ground and carrying that much weight in weapons and armour. It’s their horsemen that worry me.’
‘Worry you, Drust? I thought you and your tribesmen feared no man?’
The king looked up, to find that Calgus, still being carried over the massive shoulder of the man who had beaten him into unconsciousness, had regained his wits. His voice was weak with the after-effects of being stunned, but the acerbic note was unmistakable. He reached out and tapped Calgus’s head with his knuckle, causing the rebellion’s former leader to wince in pain.
‘Calgus! You still live, then? I thought Maon might have hit you too hard, but I see your skull is every bit as thick as I imagined.’
Calgus smiled wanly.
‘Insult me as you will, Drust, I can see that I am due a long period at your mercy before you sell me to the Romans. If they let you escape, that is…’
Drust laughed in his face, hefting his hammer with a grim smile.
‘Oh, they’ll do their very best to stop us, Calgus, and they might kill a few of us, but all they’ll really manage to do is pick off a few weaklings and provide us with fresh…’
A horn sounded back down the slope, and Drust turned back to stare down at the trees. A single horseman had fought clear of the forest’s thick growth, and was sounding the signal to alert his comrades of the Venicone warband’s presence high on the hill to their north. Drust laughed at Calgus’s expression, caught between hope and fear.
‘It’s a tough choice, eh, Calgus? To be carried off into slavery by me, or to be rescued by the Romans, whose strongest desire is to put you on a cross and watch the crows pull your eyes out while you’re still breathing. Cut his bonds and put him down, Maon, I’ll have your sword-arm free for more important work. Calgus can either keep up this gentle pace we’re setting, or he can fall behind and find out what the Romans have in store for him.’ He raised his voice to a bellow. ‘My brother warriors, very soon now the Roman horsemen will be snapping at our heels, eager to take our heads for the bounty they will earn for each man they kill! We must keep moving, no matter how many times they attack! If they can stop us here, they will bring their soldiers up the hill to surround us and slaughter us from behind their shields! Keep moving, and use your spears to make them keep their distance. Archers, pick your targets well, and wait until you cannot miss before you shoot! We must keep moving, cross this miserable bump of a hill and make for our own land! The horsemen will give it up soon enough. And remember, brothers, tonight we dine on horse flesh!’
Calgus, initially unsteady on his feet after being unceremoniously tipped on to them by the massively built Maon, gritted his teeth and fell in alongside Drust, a cynical smile playing across his face despite the pain throbbing in his head and the weakness in his knees.
‘“Tonight we dine on horse flesh?” And I thought I was the expert at keeping the facts from my people!’
The Venicone king looked back at the forest’s edge again, where another half-dozen horsemen had emerged from the trees and were trotting their mounts easily up the bare slope behind the warband.
‘Enjoy your good humour while it lasts, Calgus, I’m away to find my body slave and relieve him of a heavy burden. Those bastards are going to keep us in sight until enough of them have gathered to start picking off the stragglers with their spears, and shooting arrows into us from our flanks. And you, Calgus, have no shield.’
‘Look at him, strutting around like he had anything to do with the fighting.’
Soldier Manius poured a small measure of water on to his cupped palm, rubbing it vigorously on to his face to dislodge as much of the dried blood as possible, then poured another measure on to his sweat-crusted hair, grimacing at the dirt that came away on his hand. He shot another glance at the 20th Legion’s first spear as the senior officer walked past the Tungrians, bellowing a command at his men, and nudged the man standing next to him.
‘All big and brave when it’s all done bar the shouting, but nowhere to be seen when the iron’s flying, from what I’ve heard. A legionary from their First Cohort was telling me that…’
A roared command from their centurion, a twenty-year veteran with a battered face by the name of Otho, silenced him.
‘Stand to, Seventh Century! Stop your moaning and get in line! There’s work to be done and we’re the men to do it!’
The voices of the cohort’s other centurions were ringing out along the length of the defensive position that the Tungrians had fought grimly to defend in the dawn’s pale light, urging their men back on to their feet.
‘Good old Knuckles, now there’s an officer who’ll stand in line when the time comes. And you wouldn’t want to trade blows with…’
‘Anyone with his mouth still open, shut it now, or I’ll come and shut it for you!’
Manius nodded to his mate with a knowing look, but kept his mouth closed. Otho glanced along the line of his men for a long moment, satisfying himself that he had their full attention before speaking again.
‘That’s better. We have new orders, Seventh Century. We are to search whatever parts of this camp the legions haven’t already burned to the ground for anything that might be of value to the empire. There will still be a few of the blue-faced bastards hiding and waiting for dark to fall, so don’t use the door of any tent unless you want your head taken off. Cut a flap in the side of the tent with your sword, have a good look through it, and if it’s empty step inside to see what you can find. If you can see anyone inside the tent do not go in after him, but call on him to surrender. If you have to, surround the tent and use your spears to drive him out. And don’t kill any of the bastards unless you absolutely have to, they’re worth a lot of money to the empire. Tribune Scaurus will catch shit from above if we don’t bring a few of them out alive, and we all know that shit rolls downhill! Inside the tent you may find weapons and personal effects abandoned in the battle. Do not try to hang on to any such item, not if you don’t want me in your face. Any man found attempting to hide any booty will probably be flogged in front of the cohort, but he’ll already have a set of lumps courtesy of this…’ He held up his right fist, the knuckles criss-crossed with the scars of fights long forgotten. ‘Right, get to it! Seventh Century, advance!’
The centuries advanced slowly up the hill, skirting round the smouldering remains of tents which had caught fire during the battle and concentrating on those which had survived, enjoying the late morning’s gentle sunshine as they searched the camp at as leisurely pace as their officers would allow. After an hour of slow climbing with nothing more than the occasional discovery and capture of a hiding barbarian to show for their efforts, the cohort entered the section of the camp which had been used by the Venicones.
Approaching the next in an apparently unending succession of tents to be searched, Manius’s tent party went about their task in exactly the same way they had approached every other search that morning. Hacking an upside-down ‘V’ out of the tent’s wall with his razor-edged dagger, the senior soldier looked cautiously through the opening he’d made, calling a warning back to his comrades.
‘Body! Looks like he’s dead…’ Dropping his shield, he stepped in through the hole with the dagger held ready to fight, looking round the tent’s interior for any lurking enemy. ‘Clear! This one’s definitely dead, he’s got a ballista bolt through his spine. Might be something here, though…’ Putting a boot on the crouching corpse’s shoulder, he pushed the dead barbarian away from a small wooden chest. ‘What have we got here? All the usual barbarian rubbish, I suppose… spoon, knife, cloak brooches…’ He slipped the jewellery into his purse, then frowned as he caught sight of something gleaming brightly in the sprawled barbarian’s hand, reaching down to pry it loose from the dead man’s cold fingers with his pulse quickening.
‘So what’s this, then, I wonder, all bright and shiny…’ He turned back to the rent in the tent’s wall and called softly to the soldier standing on the other side. ‘Look at this!’ He held up the torc for the other man to see, hefting the weight of it. ‘Weighs as much as my dagger! We should call for Knuckles…’
The look on his face belied the words, and his comrade took one look and nodded agreement with the unspoken sentiment.
‘What, and have that old bastard walk away with enough money to put every man in the tent party on the street set up for life? That’s ours, mate. We fought for it, and we’re keeping it. Stuff that thing into your armour, under your shield-arm. That’s our retirement fund you’ve got there.’
‘We’ll not stop them tonight.’
By late afternoon the Venicones were a dozen miles to the northwest of the barbarian camp’s smoking ruin and still marching, while the Petriana’s cavalrymen rode to either side and behind them. Battered shields and bloodied spears told their own stories, but for every half-dozen barbarian bodies spreadeagled on the hillsides in the warband’s trampled wake, their backs arched in death by the impact of the cavalrymen’s spears, the Petriana had paid the painful price of a dead rider. Tribune Licinius sat on his horse on a slope to one side of their path and watched the tribesmen trotting wearily across the hill’s thin turf in the sun’s slowly ebbing light, nodding his head at the decurions ranged alongside him decisively.
‘They’ll make another few miles before night falls, and camp in the open tonight. There’s nothing to give them any shelter that they could reach before dusk. We’ll have to fall back to the legions, get a night’s sleep and some food into men and beasts, then get these lazy buggers back out here to renew hostilities tomorrow morning. After a day like today we’ll all benefit from a few hours without having to stare at those bloody savages and their spoils.’
His men had watched in horror that morning, as those riders foolhardy enough to risk a charge at the warband’s flanks had been mobbed by the Venicones, seeing their fellow soldiers dragged from their horses and killed with a savagery that made their last moments a screaming bloody nightmare. Any man that had ridden to the aid of a comrade in such circumstances had achieved no more than to sign his own death warrant, and the horsemen had been forced to watch the swift and horrible demise of their comrades without any means of either rescue or revenge. Worse still for men trained to put the welfare of their mounts before their own, more than one riderless horse had been pulled into the warband and swiftly butchered for the meat to be had from its steaming corpse. While the cavalrymen had shouted enraged curses and oaths of revenge at the fleeing barbarians, their initial hot-blooded attempts to disrupt the tribesmen’s flight had quickly reduced in intensity as the likely fate of any man that rode too close to their enemy sank in. For the most part they had ridden in sullen silence alongside their enemy, casting dark glances at men carrying trophies of weapons and armour torn from their dead comrades, or laden with heavy chunks of bloody meat.
‘Should we leave scouts to keep watch on them, Tribune?’
Licinius shook his head at the question.
‘I see no need. They’re leaving a trail in the grass that we’ll pick up easily enough in the morning. No, we’ll not risk another man in pursuing these bloody-handed bastards, and tomorrow we’ll have the rations to stay with them for a few days, and a few other tricks to make them sorry they’ve taken their knives to our horses. Come on, gentlemen, let’s drag our men away from their dreams of revenge and take them home for the night.’
‘So then he just says “Guard my left” and jumps into the blue-noses like a madman. Grabs an axe and paints himself from head to foot with blood. There was guts and shit everywhere…’
Spotting Centurion Julius approaching over Cyclops’s shoulder, the soldier known to his mates as Scarface snapped to attention, saluting the 5th Century’s officer as he stopped to stand in front of the half-dozen men grouped a few paces from the door of their officer’s tent. Looking about the group, the heavy-built centurion hooked a thumb over his shoulder, his black-bearded face creasing into its habitual sneer of disdain.
‘You rear-rank heroes have got better things to be doing than encouraging this idler to spin his tales. Go and do them. Now.’
The soldiers took their cue, dispersing back to their respective centuries without a backward glance at the watch officer, who, making to leave in his own turn, found himself detained by a pointed finger and a hard stare.
‘Not you, Cyclops. Nor you, Scarface. You two and I need words.’
The one-eyed watch officer nodded meekly, recalling his previous encounters with Julius in the days before Marcus had taken an interest in him, and commanded him to drag himself free from his downward spiral of infringement against authority and ever harsher punishment.
‘Where’s your centurion, Watch Officer?’
Augustus pointed at the tent behind him.
‘Not come out since we got back to camp, sir. He’s…’
‘And your optio?’
Scarface spoke up.
‘With the wounded, Centurion. He sent me to collect some water.’
The centurion leaned in closer, hard eyes boring into Scarface’s, and took a firm grip of the soldier’s tunic.
‘Best be on your way, then, hadn’t you, soldier? But before you go, a word of advice. If I catch you boasting about what Centurion Corvus did today again I’ll have you round the back of the command tent for a short and painful lesson in the lost art of keeping your bloody mouth shut. You’re supposed to have a reputation for watching over him like a mother hen, and yet here you are, mouthing off to anyone that’ll listen about what a great warrior he is. Perhaps you ought to be the one who’s called “Latrine” behind his back; you’re more deserving of the name than me from what I can see. Now get out of my sight.’
Scarface hurried away, red faced and chastened, but the burly centurion had already forgotten him as he turned back to the watch officer.
‘It’s true, then? He’s shut himself in there and won’t come out?’
Cyclops nodded silently, his misery so evident that even Julius, who under normal circumstances would have wasted no time telling the watch officer to pull himself together and get on with doing his job, was almost lost for words himself. He patted the other man on the shoulder and gestured to the line of tents behind him.
‘Best if you make sure your men have got their gear sorted out, and then get them rolled up in their cloaks and asleep. The rumours are flying that we’re back on the march in the morning, looking for more barbarians’ heads.’
Cyclops nodded again, saluting the burly centurion and turning away to do his bidding while Julius stood and stared at the tent’s closed entrance flap for a long moment before stepping through it. Inside he found Marcus sitting in near-darkness, his armour still crusted with the dried blood of the men he had killed fighting his way to retrieve his friend’s head.
‘Come on, lad, there’s no time for this nonsense. You’re a centurion, you’ve got men bleeding out there and you’ve left your optio to pick up the pieces. You need to…’
‘He’s dead, Julius. The best friend I had in the world…’
Julius followed his exhausted, vacant stare and started with shock. Tiberius Rufius’s severed head was propped against the tent wall, his dead eyes staring glassily back at Marcus.
‘Jupiter’s fucking cock and balls! I don’t… you just can’t…’
Words failing him, the big centurion shook his head in disbelief and reached down for the dead man’s head.
‘Leave. Him. Alone.’
The barely restrained animal ferocity in the Roman’s voice froze Julius in mid-stoop. He turned to look at his friend, finding himself eye to eye with a face he barely recognised as the man he had watched pull himself from the edge of oblivion to command a century of Tungrians alongside him. Marcus spoke again, through gritted teeth, his face stonily implacable.
‘You leave him alone, Julius. I haven’t finished making my peace with him yet, not by a long march.’
The fight went out of him like a snuffed candle, as if he had nothing more to give.
‘Just leave me alone with him. I need more time to say goodbye to him.’
Julius straightened, shrugging helplessly.
‘This is wrong, Marcus. You just can’t do this…’
The young centurion had slumped back against the tent wall, his entire focus on his dead friend’s head. Julius shook his head in helpless exasperation and ducked out through the flap.
‘You!’
The passing soldier froze at the bellowed command, snapping to attention and staring at him warily.
‘I want a lamp and some oil to light your centurion’s tent. Fetch them here, now!’
Tribune Scaurus walked into his tent as the sun was dipping to touch the western horizon, dropping his helmet and sword belt on to the rough wooden table and nodding wearily to his two senior centurions. After the rout and destruction of the Selgovae tribe’s warriors, trapped in their camp and battered into ruin by two legions, and with their fleeing survivors hunted down by the auxiliary cohorts that accompanied the main force, he had been summoned to a senior officers’ conference with the governor and his legion commanders that had lasted most of the evening. He turned back to the tent’s door, muttering a quiet command to his lone bodyguard. The massively built German nodded, closing the tent’s flap and turning to stand guard over his master’s privacy.
‘Arminius will make sure we’re not disturbed. This information is for you and you alone, at least for the time being.’
Taking a cup of wine from First Spear Frontinius’s outstretched hand, Scaurus raised it to the two men and tipped it back, swallowing the contents in a single gulp.
‘Thank you, Sextus. Mithras unconquered, I needed that. It baffles me how a man as abstemious as Ulpius Marcellus ever reached the rank of governor. He certainly isn’t one for handing round the drinks, not even after a successful battle. S0, gentlemen, how are our men?’
Frontinius rubbed his shaved head before answering, his features shadowed with fatigue.
‘Our section of the camp is built and secure, Tribune, and the men of both cohorts are bedded down with double guards, in case any stray barbarian gets the idea to come looking for revenge in the dark.’
His colleague Neuto, the 2nd Cohort’s senior centurion, nodded agreement.
‘The First Cohort got the worst of the fighting this morning, so we agreed to let the Second take guard duty for the night.’
Scaurus accepted the decision without surprise. Since his promotion to command of both Tungrian cohorts after the untimely death of the 2nd’s prefect, and with a promotion from prefect to tribune to reflect his increased responsibility and status, he had found the two former comrades worked so well together that his decision-making capabilities were rarely called into play.
‘Any more dead?’
Frontinius ignored the wax tablet open in his hand, his tired face grim as he recounted the damage done to his cohort in the dawn battle to break into the barbarian camp.
‘Yes, another two men dead from their wounds, so the first cohort has now lost a hundred and thirty-seven men today, eighty-seven of them dead and another dozen or so likely to die before dawn. The bandage carriers reckon that about twenty of the wounded will fight again given time, but the rest are finished as soldiers. Most of the surviving centuries are still at more or less effective fighting strength, though, since the majority of the dead were from the Sixth.’
The tribune nodded.
‘Yes. The governor sends his respects and sympathy, as did Legatus Equitius on behalf of the Sixth Legion. He collared me afterwards, sent you his regards and told me that if there’s anything he can do, short of giving us men to make up our losses, we have only to ask. Is there anything we could ask him for?’
The 6th Legion’s commanding officer had been Frontinius’s prefect until a few months earlier in the year, and their relationship had been a strong one. The first spear shook his head.
‘Other than taking Centurion Corvus off our hands, given that once again he’s the talk of the bloody camp and likely to bring inquisitive senior officers down on us like flies on freshly laid shit? No, Tribune, I don’t think there’s anything the legatus can do for us.’
Scaurus was silent for a moment.
‘And how is the centurion?’
Frontinius shook his head.
‘Julius found him sitting in his tent with poor Rufius’s head and refusing to come out. Says he’s had enough of leading his friends to their deaths, what with Antenoch a few days ago and now the best friend he had left in the world. Dubnus could probably have dragged him out of it quickly enough, but he’s fifty miles away with a spear wound in his guts, which only leaves Julius, and he’s about as sensitive with these things as I am. Added to which he tells me that the man very nearly went for him when he tried to reunite Rufius’s head with the rest of him.’
Scaurus nodded.
‘And there’s not one of us that would relish being on the wrong end of that. Best you leave him to me then. First Spear Neuto, how’s the Second Cohort?’
‘No more deaths, Tribune, but then we only took a handful of serious wounds apart from the fifteen men who were killed this morning. Sextus and I have agreed that the Second will take the lead in our next battle, if there’s a lead to be taken. And if there’s a battle to be fought, given that we’ve just torn the Selgovae’s fighting strength limb from limb.’
Scaurus rubbed a hand over his narrow face, his grey eyes ringed by the fatigue of the previous week’s ceaseless activity.
‘Whether there’ll be any more fighting this year I couldn’t say, but I can assure you both that this campaign isn’t over. Not for us, at least.’
Frontinius frowned.
‘For us…? What about the rest of the army?’
‘The rest of the army, Sextus Frontinius, has other fish to fry.’
The prefect unrolled the map he kept in his field chest, laid it across his table and weighted the corners with his helmet and weapons. He pointed to a spot on the map north of the wall that spanned the province to separate civilisation from the northern tribes, and a good distance to the east of the road that ran northwards from the wall, bisecting the tribal lands beyond the frontier.
‘That’s us. Battle won, and the Selgovae well and truly put back in their place.’
He tapped the map to the west of the road, indicating the Selgovae’s tribal lands.
‘They’ll have to be kept in their place, of course, but a single cohort could probably manage that, given that we’ve killed most of their fighting strength today. The Cugerni and Vangiones cohorts ought to be more than enough force to keep their heads down. You know how that works…’
Both of the senior centurions nodded with grim faces, and Neuto’s voice was harsh as he spoke.
‘Oh yes, Tribune, we know how that works. Go in hard and do whatever it takes to make sure the stupid blue-nosed bastards are clear that they lost. Burn their villages at any sign of resistance, confiscate anything they’re not clever enough to hide, and give them a winter they won’t forget for a while. There’ll be a skirmish or two, but they’re out of the fight after today. And us?’
‘We drew the more interesting job, I’d say.’ The tribune pointed to the land to the east of the North Road. ‘We’re ordered to head north and east, and liberate the Votadini from whoever it was that Calgus sent north to rule them, once he’d killed King Brennus. Since we don’t know how many warriors Calgus sent north with their new “king”, we’re to advance at full strength and in full battle order, and we’ve been given six squadrons of horsemen from the Petriana wing to scout for us. The governor thinks that Calgus may have run for the safety of the Votadini capital, given that we’ve not found his body on the battlefield, which makes him very keen to liberate it from the last of his men and see what we find.’
First Spear Frontinius frowned again, raising a bemused eyebrow at his superior, his voice acerbic with disapproval.
‘Two cohorts? Sixteen hundred men, even if we were at full strength? We ought to be twice the number, and with a bloody sight more than two hundred horsemen. Not only do we not know how many warriors might be waiting for us, but there’s still the small question of the Venicones. The last I heard on the subject was that some weak-chinned fool in a stripy tunic dithered outside the barbarian camp for long enough that the entire Venicone warband was able to make a sharp exit through the north fence.’
Scaurus nodded sharply, his eyes signalling disapproval of the language his subordinate was using to describe a senior officer, if not the offended sentiment behind them.
‘I know, First Spear, and I won’t bore you with the excitement that little error of judgement has inspired among the great and the good, except to tell you that we’ve had a cohort detached from the Twentieth Legion under the command of the “weak-chinned fool” in question attached to us. Apparently it was either that, or go home in disgrace for letting the Venicones escape from under his nose, so he’s chosen to work under me for a few weeks as punishment.’
‘And the Venicones?’
‘Last seen running hard to the north, after a day spent exchanging iron and insults with the Petriana. Honours even, apparently, according to the first message riders back from the fight, with several hundred of their warriors killed by the cavalry as they fell out of the line of march with exhaustion, but fifty or so of Tribune Licinius’s men torn limb from limb as a result of getting carried away and riding too close to the enemy with the excitement of it all.’
Neuto stared at the map for a moment before speaking, his voice rich with irony.
‘So while the legions get to sit back and count barbarian heads, we go north with three cohorts, one commanded by some custard-livered aristo, and a couple of hundred horsemen, not only charged with taking the Dinpaladyr but potentially having to fend off the entire Venicone warband as well.’
Scaurus nodded, his smile tight.
‘Almost, First Spear. But the legions won’t be getting any time to polish up their armour. The one thing I haven’t mentioned yet is going to keep them very busy until the snow comes.’
Both of the senior centurions’ eyes narrowed. Neuto breathed the question in a hushed tone, his face set in the expectation of bad news.
‘The Brigantes?’
Scaurus nodded.
‘Yes, First Spear, the Brigantes. Calgus has the full-scale revolt he was desperate for, only just too late for it to do him any good. And we, gentlemen, will just have to manage with what we’re given.’
‘Curse this fucking rebellion. Another couple of days would have seen us on the Wall with the Aquila boy in our grasp. Instead of which we’re sat here like spare pricks, waiting for the bloody army to get off their arses and clear these impudent Brits away, only these useless provincial bastards are too scared of a few uppity blue-painted farmers to get out into the countryside and do what needs to be done. The bloody Guard would go through this lot like a hot knife through butter…’
Centurions Rapax and Excingus were standing on the walls of the Waterfall Town fort, forty miles to the north of the legionary fortress at Elm Grove, staring out at the dusk’s purple landscape in frustration. The praetorian was complaining bitterly to his colleague, slapping his palm down on the wall’s stone parapet to emphasise his disgust with the soldiers manning the fort below them.
‘All the way to the edge of the bloody empire in less than a month, changing horses three times a day until my arse feels like it’s made of leather, and now we’re sat here looking at the hills and wondering how the fuck we’re going to get any farther north. A few of the locals get uppity and these cowards all run home to mummy, and wait for someone else to sort it out for them.’
Excingus laughed wryly, shaking his head in mock dismay.
‘Yes, colleague, I have little doubt that your fellow guardsmen would cleave a bloody path through these rebels, were they here. Which nevertheless leaves us with the same question. Do we wait for the legions to finish their business in the frontier zone and turn south to clear out these bandits, or do we make our own way north immediately, in pursuance of Prefect Perennis’s orders? I think you can guess my preference, but I must defer to you in all such military matters.’
Rapax gave him a dirty look, tapping the hilt of his sword thoughtfully.
‘Your preference and mine are one and the same, brother, to get north and find the Aquila brat before he takes flight again. It could be rough, though. Two centurions and a few guardsmen won’t offer much resistance to a decent-sized warband, should we happen across one, even if the soldiers in question are praetorians. And I, unlike you, have fought against barbarians, in the last emperor’s wars against the Quadi and Marcomanni. I’ve heard the screams of men staked out for flaying and disembowelling, men taken in battle or from the camp in the night, and never seen again except for their ruined corpses on the tribes’ sacrificial altars. We can ride north tomorrow morning and hope to make our way through to the Wall without seeing another living soul, trusting that the advantage of surprise will be on our side…’ He grinned darkly at the corn officer. ‘… since only a bunch of madmen would attempt such a thing. I’m sure my guardsmen will think I’ve kissed my marbles goodbye, but they’ll do what I tell them readily enough. So the question isn’t really a military matter, since militarily the idea of riding north from here without enough men to sweep away the tribesmen in our path is quite likely to prove suicidal.’
He raised an eyebrow at his colleague, inviting him to comment. The corn officer stared out into the darkening and silent hills to the north for a long moment before speaking.
‘Agreed. Riding north tomorrow does seem to carry somewhat more risk than waiting here for the army to march south and restore order. If it were that simple the decision would already be made as far as I’m concerned, but I’m afraid it isn’t. If we sit here for the best part of another month, what are the odds that the news of a praetorian and a corn officer coming north will reach the army in the north well in advance of our arrival? Pretty good, I’d say, given what we know of the average soldier’s love of gossip. And if that news reaches either the Aquila boy or the men sheltering him from justice, I’ll wager my balls to a denarius that he’ll be away to another hiding place before we ever reach the Wall, much less find this Tungrian cohort he’s supposed to be hiding with.’
He paused, smiling at his colleague’s sour expression.
‘Yes, and therein lies the problem with inaction, eh, Quintus? If we go home empty handed, having paused here for the legions to regain control and make it safe for us to proceed, I wouldn’t expect all that happy a welcome when we get there. So no, the problem isn’t military, it’s more about balancing the uncertain risk of being killed or captured by the rebels against the absolute certainty of what will happen to us both if we go back without the prize. I say we go north tomorrow, and use your undoubted skills to avoid the barbarians and get us through to the Wall in one piece.’
Rapax grimaced, nodding his head reluctantly.
‘In that case you’d better go and see the centurion of the guard, and get us some better directions than “out of the north gate and don’t stop riding until you see the Wall”, and I’ll go and break the good news to my lads. They’re going to love this…’
‘You there! Who’s that sneaking round the camp after dark?’
Soldier Manius very nearly lost control of his bowels as he recognised the voice challenging him from the shadows of a pair of tents, the familiar sound of a gladius being pulled from its scabbard freezing him where he stood.
‘It’s me, Centurion, Manius!’
Otho stepped forward from the shadows, his familiar, ruined face creased into a frown.
‘What in Hades are you doing out here? I was just about to put my bloody iron through you.’
Manius caught a whiff of wine on the centurion’s breath and breathed a little more easily.
‘I couldn’t sleep, Centurion, so I came out here to avoid waking my mates up, and to get some air…’
To his surprise the officer nodded sagely, puffing a snort of recognition from his flattened nose.
‘Can’t sleep? Nor can I. Too many good men dead… too many men…’
He staggered, and Manius put out a hand to steady him, pulling it back hastily as the drunken officer started at the gesture.
‘Get your fucking hands off me! Get back to your tent and go to sleep!’
‘Yes, sir!’
Saluting, the wary soldier turned away and walked back towards his tent, then slid into the cover of the shadows and watched while Otho weaved unsteadily away to his own bed, blowing out a long, slow breath of relief. Somewhere close by a man whimpered in his sleep, reliving some horror or other from the dawn’s desperate fighting. Waiting until Otho was safely out of sight, Manius resumed his progress through the camp, using the rows of canvas tents for cover. His armour exchanged for a clean tunic and his cloak, with only his dagger for protection, he worked his way from the 1st Tungrian Cohort’s section of the camp, through the 2nd Cohort’s tents and on into the area reserved for the Petriana’s cavalrymen. Skirting round the tethered horses, well aware that any one of them could kick him unconscious if he were unwise enough to present them with an unexpected presence in their midst, he made his way slowly and stealthily into the heart of the cavalry wing’s lines, until he came upon the tent he was seeking. Several times the size of those around it, bigger even than that in which the wing’s tribune worked and slept, it contained every stores item required to keep the wing in the field for an extended period. Loosening his dagger in the sheath hidden under his cloak, he stepped through the tent’s flap to find its single occupant hunched over a scroll at his desk, his lips moving silently as he totted up the day’s consumption of his precious equipment. Without looking up from his task, he spoke in an irritated tone, shaking his head slightly.
‘And what might you be needing? A new sword? A couple of spears? Perhaps you lost your boots in the fighting today, eh? I swear I’ve not met a bigger bunch of robbers than…’
His voice tailed off as he glanced up to find the infantryman waiting silently before him, one hand sliding beneath the table’s surface to reach for the handle of a club he kept there to discourage anyone with the idea that his equipment might be available without the necessary permissions and formal records. The soldier held up his empty hands in reassurance, reaching into his tunic despite the now openly wielded club and fishing out a piece of jewellery of quite abnormal proportions. The yellow light from the storeman’s lamps shone from its ornate surface in a manner guaranteed to beguile a man whose entire life had been devoted to the pursuit of gold, and the club clattered unheeded to the floor as the supply officer advanced round his desk and stared dumbfounded at the heavy torc gripped in the unknown soldier’s hand. Rediscovering his voice, he spoke again, his tone softer than before, as if he knew that this was a prize to be pursued with delicate care.
‘Quite… amazing…’ He coughed, clearing his throat before continuing, adopting a more businesslike tone as the torc’s initial impact on him began to subside. ‘And so, soldier…?’
Manius shook his head, his face tense.
‘I’m not that stupid. If we’re going to do business I need to be sure that my piece of the bargain will be between the two of us. If anyone outside of my tent party discovers I’m carrying the sort of coin this will earn they’ll have it off me quicker than you could rob a new recruit of half a year’s pay for his gear. And this little beauty is our retirement, me and my mates.’
The supply officer kept a straight face, nodding his under -standing.
‘There are thieves all around, my friend, and so I completely understand your need to remain nameless. Might I ask how you came by this… interesting… spoil of battle? It was my understanding that such a precious ornament would most likely decorate the neck of a tribal chief, and yet no such head is reported as having been taken today. How can I be sure that this is what it seems?’
The Tungrian snorted, smiling with little humour in his face.
‘Oh, it’s real, I can guarantee you that. We were first into the barbarian camp, once the fence came down, and when the blue-noses finally broke and ran it was my cohort that swept up the hillside, ripping through their tents and capturing those men that were trying to hide from us in them, taking them to be slaves. I found a barbarian hunched over this with the missile from a bolt thrower stuck clean through him. He was probably supposed to be looking after it when the artillery boys got lucky, but it was me and my mates that struck the gold they uncovered. So now then, what will you offer me for this pretty little trinket?’
The supply officer held out a hand for the torc, smiling at the reluctance with which the nameless soldier handed across the heavy ornament. Examining it closely under the light of one of his lamps, he nodded his head in appreciation.
‘Quite lovely. Beautifully engraved, clearly authentic and once a suitable provenance has been dreamed up with a little more romance than some poor bugger getting an accidental bolt in the back, it’ll be worth a small fortune from the right collector. I can’t offer you any more than five hundred for it, though…’ He handed the torc back to the open-mouthed soldier, shrugging at the other man’s obvious outrage. ‘What were you expecting? Ten thousand denarii and a night alone with the prettiest horse in the cohort…?’ He sighed wearily, as if explaining the mechanics of fencing stolen tribal jewellery were a routine topic of conversation, and Manius narrowed his eyes at the storeman’s well-practised act without the ability to gainsay his words. ‘Look, whatever your name is, this stuff doesn’t just sell itself. I’ll sell it to a man in the south of the province, for a profit of course. He’ll move it to Rome, to a businessman he knows, for a profit. He in turn will know the right dealer in such precious and risky items, a man who knows where the discreet and wealthy customers are found for this sort of rather specialised merchandise. And he in turn will take a profit.’
Realising that the Tungrian still didn’t understand, he shook his head with a gentle smile.
‘What you’re doing right now is illegal. You should have handed this in to your centurion when you found it, and he should then have passed it up to your first spear, and so on. By now this little trinket should be on the governor’s desk, with him feeling rather smug about being able to send it to the Emperor with his compliments. Instead of which you’re sneaking around the camp and trying to find a buyer for it, and inviting me to join you in your crime. The dealer in Rome will have his wind stopped for good if he’s caught trading this, since in reality he’s robbing the throne of a nice heavy bag of gold. Oh yes, we all do it, but getting caught with this little beauty would be a death sentence to anyone in the chain I’ve described, and they’re all going to want a nice big slice of it to take the risk. That’s why fifty thousand paid to the dealer in Rome becomes twenty-five thousand paid to the man that takes it to him, which becomes ten thousand to my man in the south, which becomes five thousand to me – if I’m lucky. And I’ve got the worst risk of all, since I have to find the money to pay you here on the edge of the world, and I have to get the item in question across a country that just won’t stop rebelling to my man in the south. That’ll cost me at least a thousand, and probably more.’ He sighed, shaking his head and raising both hands in the universal gesture of surrender. ‘All right, and against all my commercial instincts, I’ll give you a thousand. How many of you are there left alive in your tent party?’
‘Five.’
‘Well, there you go, then, that’s a nice clean two hundred apiece, two years’ wages and none of the usual deductions. A man can do a lot with that much coin. What do you say?’
The soldier’s face darkened, but he knew he was left with little alternative.
‘Go on, then. Give me the cash and I’ll be away.’
The other man shook his head quickly.
‘No can do, I’m afraid. I’ve only got a few hundred on me, and I’ll have to borrow the rest from an associate. Leave the piece with me and I’ll make sure the balance gets to you…’
The Tungrian shook his head disbelievingly.
‘Right, that’ll be easy with you not knowing my name.’ He stuffed the torc back into his tunic, turning for the tent’s flap. ‘I’ll come back to you tomorrow night, so you have the money ready and we’ll have a deal. Any delay and the price doubles, to compensate me for my risk in holding it for you.’
He ducked out of the tent and into the night, starting his cautious passage through the camp to his own cohort’s lines. The supply officer, once he was sure that the soldier was really gone, smiled broadly to himself as he reached for his cloak.
*
With the senior centurions away to their cohorts, eager to start their preparations for the next day’s march north, Scaurus stretched his weary frame and opened the tent’s door to find Arminius waiting for him.
‘Go and get some rest, my friend. We’re marching north tomorrow, and I’ll need you fresh for the fight. Now, which way to the First Cohort’s lines?’
The massively built German crossed his scarred arms and fixed the tribune with a level stare.
‘You want me to go and rest? Look at the state of you.’
Scaurus raised an eyebrow, and took a breath, preparing to speak, but closed his mouth as the German bent slightly to speak quietly into his face.
‘You will recall the day you took me prisoner? The day Thunaraz looked down from the clouds and threw his lightning bolts to gift you victory at the moment of your defeat, and condemn my people to defeat and slavery, curse him. I told you then, and I tell you again now, that I will fight for you, I will die for you, and I will worship your god Mithras alongside you, but I will never spare you my opinion. And it is my opinion that you do need sleep, and that you do not need to take any part in preparing your men for war tonight.’
The tribune’s reply was quiet, but equally firm.
‘There’s one particular man that needs my help, Arminius.’
The German shook his head.
‘No. You represent authority, and Centurion Corvus will surely never bow to authority while he has his best friend’s head staring at him. Leave the boy to me, and get your head down. If I fail to reawaken his interest in life, then you can take your turn at persuading him later. Although if what I plan fails, Mithras alone knows what will be required to bring him back to life.’
Scaurus nodded wearily, patting the big man’s shoulder with something approaching affection, then turned and closed the tent’s door flap. Arminius stared at the canvas in silence for a long moment, then turned and walked swiftly for the 1st Cohort’s section of the camp. As he approached the first of the cohort’s sentry points, two men stepped forward with raised spears, the weapons’ points glinting in the torchlight.
‘Halt! What’s the watchword?’
The German laughed, advancing until the spearheads were almost touching the mail shirt that covered his massive chest.
‘Watchword? How the fuck would I know the watchword, you stupid bastards, I’ve been keeping guard outside the tribune’s tent for the last hour, without the time to play your little soldier games. Now shift your arses out of my way or I’ll put those spears where they’ll never see the light of day again.’
The soldiers looked at each other uncertainly, but were saved from their dithering by the appearance of Julius walking briskly towards them.
‘Let him through. He’s too stupid to remember the watchword even if he’d bothered to find out what it was.’
Arminius stepped past the soldiers, clasping hands with their officer.
‘Julius, it’s good to see that you came through today’s madness unscratched.’
The big centurion turned his right arm over to reveal a long shallow slice into the flesh of his forearm.
‘Not quite unmarked. This will make a nice addition to my scar collection, even if I have a way to go before I can match yours. The warrior that did it is currently considering his lot from the roof of my tent, or at least his head is. Cheeky blue-nosed bastard. And to what do we owe the honour of your visit so late in the day?’
The German grimaced.
‘There is a young officer who has taken to his tent, I believe, and refuses to consider leaving it for fear of causing the deaths of more of his friends?’
The smile vanished from Julius’s face.
‘Yes. His century is sitting shivering in their tents with their chins wobbling, and when I went to reason with him he nearly took my head off. We’ve got until dawn to get him back on his feet, or else he’ll have to be left behind when we march…’
Arminius nodded.
‘Leave him to me.’
Julius watched the German head off down the line of tents with tired eyes, then turned back to the sentries with a dismissive sneer.
‘And the next man that turns up here without the watchword and shouting the odds, remember the golden rule. If in doubt, spears first and questions later. You call yourselves soldiers…?
Arminius found the man he was looking for without too many problems. Where the Tungrians had their tents laid out in straight lines, their Votadini allies’ shelters were gathered around their leader’s tent in a tight circle. He stopped at the perimeter of the huddle of tents and shouted across them, his voice a commanding bark.
‘Martos!’
After a moment’s pause a warrior that Arminius recognised as one of the prince’s bodyguard strolled out to meet him, eyeing the German flatly and keeping his hands close to a pair of fighting knives tucked in his belt.
‘Why do you call upon a prince of the Votadini and a free man as if you were his master, rather than addressing him with the respect that your slavery to the Romans demands?’
The German chuckled darkly, putting his hands on his hips with supreme self-confidence.
‘Free men? You and your prince submitted to Roman rule just as completely as I, once you were betrayed by Calgus and defeated by these soldiers camped around you. And you are not the man I wish to speak with. Tell your master I need his help with Centurion Corvus.’
The Votadini warrior stared hard at him for a long moment, then turned on his heel and walked back into the cluster of tents. After a moment Martos stepped out of his tent and beckoned the German to join him. He took a lungful of the cold night air and stared up at the blazing stars in the coal-black sky above them, waiting for Arminius to negotiate his way through the tents. When the German stood before him he continued to stare upwards, speaking without looking at the other man.
‘My kinsman tells me that you wish to speak with me. He told me that I had only to say the word and he would gut you like a rabbit, and I told him that taking his knives to you would be a very good way to die before his time. He is frustrated, like all of my men, not to have been turned loose to hunt down Calgus once his warriors were beaten, although I suppose that we will get over the disappointment. Especially as we expect he has run to the last of his men who currently hold our capital. So, you have my attention. What can I do for you that will not wait for daylight?’
His gaze came to rest on Arminius, who inclined his head respectfully.
‘Prince Martos, our friend Centurion Corvus has taken to his tent and will not come out. Instead he sits hunched over the head of his colleague Rufius, terrified of leading any more of his comrades to bloody death. I think we’ve seen this before, you and I, and I think we both understand what will happen if he cannot be persuaded to change his mind.’
Martos nodded.
‘He is a fugitive from their justice. Without the shelter provided by the Tungrians, he will soon be discovered. And when that happens, riders will be sent to this cohort to arrest the tribune and first spear, and take them to explain how they came to be providing our friend with a hiding place in which to escape from the Emperor’s justice. They would join him in a slow and painful death, were he to be uncovered for who he really is. But why should this concern me? I like the man, but if he insists on cutting his own throat then little I can do or say will prevent him from doing so, and as for Frontinius and Scaurus, well, one Roman officer is much like any other, I would imagine.’
Arminius spoke quickly, his voice kept low to avoid their being overheard.
‘We march tomorrow, to free your tribal capital from whatever hold Calgus still has over your people. My master is sympathetic to your people’s plight, whereas the man that will probably replace him if Corvus is discovered is a Roman aristocrat, and cares no more for the likes of you and me than for any other “barbarian”. Worse than that, he is a man of little courage from what we saw today. I fear for your people’s safety if he becomes the commander of the force on which your tribe’s survival rests.’
Martos eyed the German for a moment.
‘You present me with little choice, then? Either we get the centurion back on his feet, or we risk losing the officer most likely to want my people free without the spilling of any more of their blood.’ He sighed. ‘Again I find myself drawn into matters for which I care little, when all I want is to be set loose to hunt down Calgus. Come on, then, German, let’s put some strength back in this Roman’s backbone.’
They walked quickly to the 9th Century’s tents, Martos waving away the bodyguards who ran to join him as he strode away.
‘Any man that can best me and this ugly German bastard deserves our heads.’
The 9th’s tents were pitched in an orderly manner, and the soldiers were already tucked away and asleep, exhausted by the exertions of the day, but half a dozen men were standing around their centurion’s tent with worried faces. Seeing the two barbarians approaching, Qadir and Cyclops sent the rest away to join their tent parties and greeted the two with respectful nods. Both men knew that Martos’s intervention in the battle of the Red River had saved the cohort from being overrun, and Arminius was universally recognised as a man not to be crossed.
‘He’s still in there, eh, Cyclops?’
The watch officer nodded, indicating the tent’s door flap with a wave of his hand.
‘Young gentleman won’t come out, won’t eat or take a drink either. Just sits there staring at Centurion Rufius’s head…’
Martos put a hand on his shoulder, gently easing him to one side.
‘Leave him to us.’
The two men stepped into the tent, finding it lit by a single guttering lamp whose fuel was nearly exhausted. Martos looked at Arminius, who nodded silently and backed out of the door, calling for more oil. Marcus was sitting on his bedroll, the severed head of his friend facing him across the dimly lit space, propped against the oiled leather of the tent’s wall. The tent reeked of blood and sweat, and Marcus’s armour and flesh were still caked with gore, the untreated cut on his cheek a line of crusted blood.
‘I see your friend Rufius is dead. A pity, he was a steady hand in a fight from what little I knew of him. In my tribe, when a warrior brother falls in battle, we take a drink and celebrate his life. We commend his spirit to the gods, and pray that our exit from this life will be as noble as his. I have heard that he died with half a dozen dead men littering the ground around him. And I have also heard that you, Centurion Corvus, hacked apart a dozen men to take his head back from our mutual enemies. You Romans clearly have your own ways of marking such a glorious death, and such a feat of revenge, but this does not seem fitting…’
Arminius stepped back into the tent with another lamp, then busied himself pouring oil into the first one while Martos looked on, weighing up the exhausted and demoralised man slumped on the ground in front of him. He squatted in front of Marcus, looking into the younger man’s red-rimmed eyes.
‘So, Centurion, you have a choice. Come with us now, leave the past behind you and look forward to tomorrow. Come with us now, and we will drink to your friend’s feats of this and other days. We will send him to his gods with our thanks for the time he gave us. Or you can stay here and wallow in your misery, and tomorrow we will be forced to march away and leave you with the legions, where you will eventually be discovered to be a fugitive from justice.’
He eyed the downcast Roman with a calculating eye before continuing.
‘Rufius saved your life, before you found your new home with these people, right? When your father was executed by the Emperor, and your family slaughtered, it was Rufius who helped you to escape from the men hunting you?’
Marcus nodded, smiling wanly at the memory as he answered.
‘He wasn’t the greatest of warriors, but he was every inch a soldier. He stood alongside me twice with his sword drawn when he hardly knew me. He brought me to the cohort, persuaded me to change my name from Valerius Aquila to Tribulus Corvus…’ He shook his head with the memory of that cold spring morning earlier in the year.
‘So you owed him your life twice over. Is that why you jumped into the warband today? You should have been killed in an instant, but between your men’s efforts and the favour of Mithras, you killed a dozen men or more and walked out alive with what was left of your friend. Your name is on the lips of every man in camp, thanks to that moment of madness, and the story grows with every telling, as does the number of people who hear about an insane young Roman fighting with an auxiliary cohort. We march north tomorrow, and if you don’t lead your men out of camp tomorrow morning, it will only be a matter of days before someone puts the pieces of your story together and you find yourself in irons, waiting for the carpenters to finish building not only your cross, but those on which everyone who has protected you will die in agony alongside you.’
Marcus stood up, stretching the stiffness out of his joints.
‘So if I don’t pull myself together I risk dragging everyone else into my private Hades? And what if I do march north? How long will it be before I see another of my friends hacked to pieces in front of me?’
He stared aggressively at the two men, challenging either of them to reply. Martos spoke into the charged silence, his voice harsh with emotion.
‘How long? Who knows? We’re warriors, my friend Marcus. We all live with death. None of us enjoys losing a friend, but none of us has much choice in the matter. Your father had you trained to fight, he made sure you knew how to throw your iron around. He gave you the skills you need to kill anyone that puts himself in your way. More than that, he gifted you the intelligence and aggression to survive, and perhaps even to take revenge for his murder when enough time has passed. But you won’t make a life here without facing death the way you have today, and you will face it again and again. Your friends will die, Marcus, it’s a fact of life. I’ve lost friends and kinsmen, and so has Arminius. You have two choices, Centurion, you can either learn to deal with it, or you give up now and spare those close to you by taking your own life.’
Arminius stepped in close to the exhausted centurion, gently tapping his bloody chain mail with a sad smile.
‘And whichever you choose, you must make that choice quickly now. If you’re not with us when we march tomorrow morning, you’ll represent a death sentence to the man I’ve sworn to protect with my own life. And I cannot allow that to happen.’
Marcus closed his eyes and stood silently for a moment, swaying slightly on his feet with exhaustion, then opened his eyes and regarded them without any hint of emotion.
‘Very well. You are both good men, and I trust your judgement. I will seek to deal with my loss, and not betray those left alive for the sake of those already dead.’
Martos put a gentle hand on his shoulder, guiding him towards the tent door.
‘Good. Life is for the living, Two Knives, and the more death you see, the more you will come to appreciate that truth. Let’s get you out of that mail and washed, and then the three of us can take Rufius’s head down to the fire that’s been set to deny the crows our dead, and reunite him with his brothers-in-arms. After that, I’d say that we’ll all need a drink, and a chance to remember the man at his best before we leave him here for good.’
Stores Officer Octavius found his intended partner in the torc’s purchase absent when he made his way to the man’s section of the Petriana’s camp. Enquiries as to the whereabouts of Decurion Cyrus were met with the combination of indifference and near outright hostility to which he had become accustomed in his service as a stores officer. The most helpful comment he got was from a man whose sword he had replaced with moderately good grace less than an hour before, prompting a temporary truce in the usual state of open warfare between the cavalry wing’s fighting men and the storeman they were rightly convinced was making a small fortune from supplying their needs.
‘He’s out at the turf wall supervising the guards. One of the decurions stopped an arrow this afternoon, so Cyrus has gone over to make sure Double-Pay Silus is up to doing his job for now. I can take you over to see him if it’s urgent…?’
His look of appraisal was enough to put Octavius on his guard in an instant. The stores officer and Decurion Cyrus were well known throughout the wing as men with a shared objective, wealth and all of the privileges it could buy them. Cyrus was reputed, despite his relatively lowly position as a squadron commander, to be wealthy well beyond the expectations of any of his peers, or indeed the wing’s senior officers. It was muttered that he had chanced across a large cache of barbarian gold in the previous few months, and had contrived to keep the majority of it for himself with a few well-placed bribes. As for keeping that portion that he had managed to retain to himself, his fearsome reputation for swift violence in the face of any perceived slight or wrong had guaranteed that nobody who had even the scantest idea as to what was kept in his campaign chest harboured any thought of theft. Octavius, detested though he was by the Petriana’s men, carried no such threat, and any man that suspected the presence of easy gain in his doings would have little to put him off the idea of taking a knife to either the store’s tent canvas wall or, should the necessity arise, its occupant.
‘Nothing that won’t wait. I’ll catch up with him later.’
The storeman turned away with a quiet curse, but his mood quickly lightened with the realisation that the army was unlikely to be moving from their camp alongside the ruins of the barbarian stronghold for a day or two. There were sacrifices of thanks to be made to various gods, equipment to be recovered from the dead, wounded to be carried away for treatment and the corpses of the fallen to be gathered and burned. He was sure that the governor would be unlikely to throw battle-weary soldiers on to the road without a compelling need for such a course of action. He would have plenty of time to speak with his business partner once his night’s business was complete.
*
Posting Arminius to keep guard on the command tent delayed the arrival of the latest piece of bad news at soldier level in the Tungrian cohorts by no more than an hour, and by the time of the morning meal every man in the Tungrian section of the camp was fully aware of both the facts as they were known and the inevitable speculation wrapped around them.
‘Every fort on the wall burned out, I’ve heard, women and children raped and murdered and the greybeards pegged out for the crows.’
Morban shook his head angrily at the trumpeter’s excited statement, reaching across their small tent and gripping the younger man by the tunic with an angry glint in his eyes. Short of stature and bandy legged, the standard-bearer was nevertheless solid with muscle, and a dangerous man when roused.
‘Then you’ll do well to keep your mouth shut and what you’ve heard to yourself. It’s just a story to you, eh? Well, to some of your mates it’s their women you’re talking about being fucked stupid by those dirty blue-nose bastards. Some of them have kids too. So get your bloody horn and get ready for morning parade.’
He stamped out of the tent, his breath misting in the early morning chill, almost tripping over the child sitting outside, seemingly oblivious to the cold. The boy was intent on the knife he held in one hand, and was dragging the edge of its blade across a sharpening stone. He glanced up at his grandfather before returning his gaze to the weapon’s edge.
‘I thought I could hear you and that bloody stone, Lupus.’ Morban squatted down next to his grandson, holding out a hand for the knife. The boy surrendered it reluctantly, and stared fixedly at it while his grandfather examined the edge, snatching his thumb away with a curse as the blade drew a thin line of blood. ‘Cocidius, but that’s sharp! Six more months of your constant sharpening and you’ll have nothing left, lad.’ He handed the weapon back, watching as Lupus slid it into the sheath on his belt. ‘Look, Lupus, you don’t need to sharpen a knife every day. This isn’t normal…’ His voice faltered, foundering on the certainty that nothing he said was going to make any impact on the boy, who was staring at the ground in misery.
‘Antenoch told me to make sure I always had a sharp edge on my knife.’
Morban nodded, blinking away the tears that were threatening to run down his cheeks. The boy, despite not having reached the age of thirteen years, had used the knife to hamstring a barbarian warrior at the battle of the Red River Ford, taking revenge for the murder of his friend Antenoch. He put a hand under the boy’s chin, lifting his face until they were looking into each other’s eyes.
‘I know. It’s not easy for me either. Antenoch was my friend, as well as looking after you when I couldn’t. I…’
The boy started to cry, and Morban gathered him into his arms and hugged him tightly, feeling the child’s body shake as he sobbed out his misery, and his feeling of helplessness intensified. After a few minutes the sobbing eased, and the standard-bearer was able to gently remove the boy’s arms from around his neck and hold him out at arms’ length.
‘Come on now, lad, we’ve got a parade to get organised. I don’t even know if Centurion Corvus will be join -’
As if on cue Marcus stepped out of his tent, pitched alongside that used by the standard-bearer and trumpeter, and looked about him. His eyes were red with fatigue, and his armour was still covered in dried blood, which was flaking away as the rings rubbed against each other with his movements, but his face had a determined set despite the exhaustion that shadowed his features. Morban took one quick glance and turned to bellow down the line of tents.
‘Qadir! Two Knives is up and about! And you, lad, go and get your cleaning gear, he’s going to need a bloody good brushing before he goes on parade!’
Storeman Octavius caught up with Decurion Cyrus shortly after breakfast, strolling through a surprisingly busy morning to find his would-be partner supervising a flurry of activity. Having enjoyed a few hours of sleep, he was aghast to see that the squadron’s tents were being struck and loaded on to the wing’s baggage animals, while individual troopers were fussing over their mounts and checking equipment with the solemn faces of men going back into the fight.
‘What’s happening? How can we be on the move so soon, and with the battlefield still littered with gear?’
Cyrus grinned down at him mirthlessly, shaking his head in dark amusement.
‘Always the last to know, eh, Octavius? The whole camp’s on the move, man, both legions going south to put a Brigantian rebellion back in its place, and we’re going north to see if we can bottle up the Venicones and prevent them from escaping back to their lands north of the abandoned wall. Most of us, that is. Some poor bastards have been detailed to ride to the north-east with the auxiliaries and take back some fortress that Calgus still holds.’
The stores officer’s eyes widened in near-panic, and he gripped the decurion’s arm without being aware of the action.
‘But I’ve got a deal for us…’
Cyrus reached out with his other hand and plucked the storeman’s grip from his sleeve, speaking in a quiet but fierce tone.
‘Not now. Can’t you see the interest you’re causing?’
Two or three men were already watching the pair with thinly disguised curiosity, and the decurion turned away to check the fastenings on his saddle, speaking quietly over his shoulder.
‘What’s so urgent that it can’t wait a few days?’
‘I’ve got a soldier from one of the Tungrian cohorts offering me a bloody great big gold barbarian torc, and he says it belonged to a tribal chief. It’ll sell in Rome for a hundred thousand, minimum, and I’ve got him on the hook for a thousand. We can probably make at least twenty thousand on the deal, if you can just lend me five hundred to make up the purchase price…’
Cyrus turned back to him, taking his spear and showing him its iron head as if to discuss some feature of its manufacture.
‘Firstly, my friend, there’s no way I’m going to put my hand into my purse with this collection of thieves and idlers watching. And secondly, both Tungrian cohorts are away off to the north-east with that aristo Felix and six squadrons, something about cleaning out a nest of blue-noses up north, so that torc’s about to march out of the camp. It seems that your deal’s walking out on you.’