The next morning was bright and cold, a harsh wind from the east making the Selgovae tribesmen occupying the Alauna fort huddle deeper into their thick woollen cloaks. They had gorged themselves on the fort’s stores the previous evening, and taken their pleasure of the vicus’s remaining inhabitants in an orgy of alcohol and rape, and many of the warriors were still the worse for wear by the middle of the next morning. A handful of corpses were scattered across the fort’s cobbles like bloodied rags, left where they had been butchered by drunken tribesmen, and a faint echo of the stench of blood was carried by the biting wind. The faint cries of distress from those of the vicus’s inhabitants that still lived bore witness that not all of the tribesmen had yet drunk themselves to the point of insensibility.
The tribal band’s leader sat in the detritus of the former commander’s residence, chewing on a piece of salted meat and basking in a quiet feeling of satisfaction. After their escape from the destruction of Calgus’s forest camp his men had run long and hard to evade the inevitable pursuit, and to have found such ready shelter and food was little less than divine intervention. His warriors could recoup their strength over the next day or two, and the fort’s intact walls and gate would protect them from any Roman units that happened across their hiding place. As he sat grinding the near-indigestible meat between his teeth, one of his men burst into the room, his sword drawn and a wild look in his bloodshot eyes.
‘Harn, there are Romans advancing from the south! Looks like a legion!’
From the elevated vantage point offered by the fort’s walls, Harn could see a long column of infantry approaching from the south, moving with a deliberate speed rather than hurrying to the attack as he would have expected. Straining his eyes, he could see that the leading soldiers were indeed legionaries, their detachment standard fluttering gaily in the wind, the stylised representation of a bull immediately identifying them as belonging to the hated 6th Legion.
He stared bleakly over the fort’s stone rampart, looking across the empty landscape to the north and reckoning the odds. ‘It would be them. At least there’s no cavalry to be seen, and none of their stone throwers either. We could hold this place for weeks, given the amount of food they left behind, or we could make a run to the north without fear of being ridden down. It’s a pity there’s no way to know if they’ll bottle us up in here, or just pass by and head north.’
As if in answer, the advancing cohorts’ trumpets blew again, and the column split into three, one body of men deploying to the east and another to the west, while the foremost cohort spread across the southern arc. Within minutes the whole southern horizon was lined with troops apparently awaiting the order to advance to encircle the fort. Harn frowned out at them, looking again to the north.
‘Looking to wrap us up, are they? If I could be sure there was no cavalry out there…’
A horseman rode forward from the advancing column with a dozen soldiers trotting alongside him, his armour and weapons shining in the morning light, and reined in his horse at the edge of any possibility of bowshot from the fort’s walls. A warrior close to Harn put an arrow to his bow, ready to chance his skill at the distant target, but the Selgovae leader tapped him on the arm and shook his head.
‘Let’s hear what the bastard has to say before you start trying to put an iron head into his guts. Signal him to approach!’
The Roman officer dismounted, and approached the captured fort’s walls with an escort of six men with shields held ready to protect him. At fifty paces from the wall he halted, bellowing out his challenge loud enough for every man gathered on the walls to hear it clearly.
‘Selgovae warriors! I am Scaurus, the tribune commanding this detachment, and the man with your fates held firmly in my hand! You have been lucky enough to find a fort not yet burned out, and now you line its walls wondering whether to wait us out behind them or run for the north. I cannot make that decision for you, but I can provide you with a small clue as to the treatment you can expect when we break in and put an end to your pathetic remnant. I have with me a cohort from the imperial Sixth Legion, and these are men who want little more than a chance to take their swords to you. These soldiers are not the raw recruits that were shipped in from Germania, after the act of betrayal that destroyed six cohorts of their comrades. These are men who actually witnessed what you did to their comrades at the battle of Lost Eagle, and they are desperate to take prisoners rather than heads in this coming battle. Any of you that survive will find your last few hours more painful than anything you could ever have imagined. Anyone that lives through this day will be skinned, crucified and left for the birds to feed on their raw flesh!’
Harn leaned forward over the fort’s wall, shouting back his defiance.
‘Why are you telling us this, Roman?! Do you want us to run before you, and save you the grief of having to come and fight for these walls?!’
The tribune’s reply was swift and purposeful, and sent a chill down the spine of any man listening with the learning to understand him.
‘No, Harn! All I want is for my sworn oath to Mithras, for retribution on you and your tribe, to be honoured! And for that to come to pass, I need you to stay right where you are, and wait for us to break in and start killing you!’
Harn spoke out of the side of his mouth, not taking his eyes off the Roman.
‘Shoot him.’
The archer raised his bow, pulling back the arrow until its iron head was level with the weapon’s wooden frame, but before he could loose the missile at the Roman officer, and with a sudden scurry of movement, a group of twenty or so warriors threw open the fort’s main gate directly below them. While they ran down the vicus’s main street, heading for the road to the north, one of the running men, a big man at once strangely familiar and yet hard to place, turned as he ran and shouted back at the men lining the fort’s walls.
‘Run while you can! The goddess is angry with us, and she has called on these Romans to deliver her justice!’
Harn stared at them in amazement for a moment before turning to look down into the street below him at the cluster of warriors gathering around the gate. More than one of their staring faces was pale with fear, and, as he drew breath to put some iron in their backs with a swift series of barked orders, one of them bolted through the gate and down the road in the wake of the running men. An arrow from the waiting archer, loosed at Harn’s terse command, left the man face down and writhing in the road’s mud, but the damage was already irretrievably done. In the next few seconds half a dozen others followed, hurdling their fallen comrade without a second glance, and the trickle quickly turned into a flood as panic spread across the fort at the sight of more and more men running for their lives. Harn cursed loudly and bounded down the steps in pursuit of his fleeing warriors, his shouts of rage lost in the chaos of the warband’s flight.
Scaurus watched and waited as the warriors streamed out of the fort, letting the rearmost men clear the vicus before signalling the legionnaires forward at the double march to occupy the fort, and secure it against any attempt by the Selgovae to return to the sanctuary of its walls. He watched for a moment longer, waiting until the running warriors were well clear of the fort, then turned to his trumpeter.
‘It seems that the barbarian’s ruse has succeeded. Give the signal.’
The trumpeter blew his horn, sending three long peals echoing across the empty landscape, and on the hill to the left of the fleeing barbarians a long line of horsemen crested the ridge to stare down pitilessly at their prey. Their upright spears glittered in the morning sun’s cold light as Decurion Felix rode out in front of his command, his normally urbane voice raised in a stern tone of command.
‘Spears!’
As one, the riders swung their spears down from the vertical to point down at the straggling line of barbarians fleeing to the north along the road’s long dark stripe, five hundred paces down the hill’s slope. Felix looked up and down the line of his men, while his mount Hades snorted and twitched beneath him, eager to run at the enemy warriors. Raising his voice to be sure he was heard along the line’s length, the decurion issued his last instructions.
‘No sword-work today, gentlemen, there are too many of them for us to stop and duel! Pick a target, and whether you hit or miss, ride through them and turn back for another go! Don’t go spearing our barbarians, they’re the ones at the front with the rags round their arms and their hands in the air! And listen for the horn signal; we need live prisoners as well as dead barbarians! Advance!’
He turned Hades through a prancing half-circle and led the detachment down the gentle slope, raising his good left hand in the command for the riders to keep pace with him while allowing Hades to lengthen his stride to a canter, controlling the stallion effortlessly with his knees as the hill’s slope eased towards level ground. In the line of horsemen behind him Marcus clung tightly to the big grey’s flanks with his thighs, pulling at the reins to lift the beast’s head, physically holding him back from charging at the enemy prematurely. Looking to either side, he saw Arminius to his left, clinging to his mount with a look that combined exhilaration and terror, while to his right Qadir’s face was alive with the joy of the moment as the chestnut mare increased her pace to match the animals to either side. The line of horsemen cantered steadily across the open space between hill and road, quickly closing the gap between them and the barbarians, who, rooted by the horsemen’s thundering approach, had drawn their weapons and were readying themselves to meet the attack. When the horsemen were a hundred paces from the barbarians Felix lowered his hand to point at the enemy, his command delivered in an almost incoherent bellow.
‘Charge! Petrianaaa!’
Ignoring the bit’s hard grip on his mouth, Marcus’s mount responded to the command the way he had been trained, putting his ears back and gathering himself for a split second before he sprang forward to rip across the turf in a furious gallop that took the pair out in front of the surging line of horsemen. Horse and rider seemed to float across the ground, such was the animal’s speed and purpose, and he barely had time to pick a target from among the mass of screaming warriors before they were upon the quavering barbarians. Putting his spear through the man’s throat more by luck than judgement, Marcus dragged the blade free as the horse, disdaining any show of fear at the warriors’ screams of pain and anger, burst through the enemy line in a scatter of bodies. He pulled the big grey back round for another pass through the enemy just in time to see disaster strike. As Arminius’s mount Colossus crossed the road’s slippery surface the animal lost balance, sending barbarians flying as he slid into them in a flurry of skittering hoofs before crashing unceremoniously to the ground with the German trapped under his struggling mass. The horse fought his way back on to his feet in an ungainly lunge, and a stray hoof clipped his helpless rider’s head, stunning Arminius and sending him headlong across the road’s hard surface. The warriors around him, momentarily scattered by the horse’s flailing limbs, raised their weapons in anticipation of an easy kill, ignoring the chaos around them.
Marcus instinctively dropped his shield and pulled the grey up sharply, releasing his mount’s reins and lifting his left leg to slide over the horse’s side to the damp turf, dropping momentarily to one knee before springing back to his feet. Two hundred paces to the north Martos and his chosen warriors, having managed to outpace the fleeing Selgovae, had slowed to a walk while they watched the Roman cavalry tear into their sworn enemies. Lugos, standing among them and yet still in no way accepted as one of them, saw Arminius fall unconscious to the ground and reacted swiftly, drawing his long sword and sprinting back towards the embattled Selgovae with a roar of challenge. The leading Selgovae warriors turned to meet him but were already too late, one man falling with his stomach torn open while another reeled back with his nose spouting blood, smashed by the giant’s massive fist.
Running towards his friend’s prostrate and unmoving body, Marcus calculated fast as several barbarians moved in for an easy kill, their swords poised to stab into the unconscious German. Drawing back his spear as he ran, he slung the weapon at the man closest to Arminius and missed by inches, sending the weapon’s wickedly sharp blade clean through the huddle of warriors without drawing blood, but scattering them in surprise and giving him the precious few seconds he needed to close the distance between them. Drawing his swords and screaming his rage at the warriors gathered around his friend, he confronted the half-dozen men poised for the kill. In the split second before the fight began, as the warriors took stock of the lone soldier confronting them, a rider clattered past the group, expertly spearing one of the barbarians in the back, dropping the man twitching across Arminius’s body. With that, Marcus was among them with his swords blurred arcs of polished iron. Hamstringing the closest man with his spatha, he ducked under a wild swing to gut his attacker with the gladius’s short blade, sending him tottering back with the stinking, slippery rope of his torn guts hanging from his body. Another warrior stepped in quickly, his powerful sword-thrust skating along the Roman’s hastily raised gladius and slicing open Marcus’s arm. Grimacing with the pain, the Roman arced his spatha through a full turn to hack the Briton’s arm off at the elbow before he could pull back, then reeled away from the fight as another of the warriors caught his helmet a glancing blow with his sword, lucky in that the blade skidded across the iron plate rather than chopping through it and into his skull, but still seeing stars from the blow. As he staggered backwards, momentarily unable to defend Arminius from the men around him, Lugos burst into their midst, having run the length of the stricken warband at risk of being taken for a Selgovae and speared by the Petriana’s riders, now roaming the battlefield at will.
Swinging his long sword two handed, he waded into the surprised warriors, scattering them in disarray as the heavy iron blade hacked deep into first one man’s spine, toppling him limply to the road’s cobbled surface, then chopped into another man’s skull, sending him reeling out of the fight with his eyes rolling upwards to display only the whites. Shaking his head and blinking away the momentary confusion caused by the sword’s impact with his helmet, Marcus hefted his weapons and stepped forward to confront the two men who had followed him out of the fight, a movement to his right catching his eye and making him back away again, shouting a swift command at the embattled Lugos.
‘Lugos! Down!’
In a thunder of hoofs a half-dozen riders bore down upon the Selgovae and rode down the tribesmen, one of the horsemen smashing his chosen target reeling to the ground with a crunching impact between his shield’s heavy brass boss and the hapless warrior’s face, and Marcus found himself standing alone, surrounded by prostrate bodies. A horn was blowing insistently somewhere across the field, the signal for prisoners to be taken now that the fight was almost over, and Marcus stared about him, marvelling at the destruction wrought by the Petriana’s men in the short time it had taken to avert the unconscious German’s death. He walked slowly on shaking legs to where Lugos was sitting up after diving to the ground to avoid the cavalrymen’s questing spears, straining to pull the big barbarian to his feet before wearily sitting down alongside the prone body of Arminius.
By mid-morning, Drust’s torturer believed he had the key to the captured decurion’s continued silence under his knives. He spoke quietly to his chieftain as he sharpened the tools of his trade one last time, dragging their razor-edged blades across the whetstone more for the effect that the rasping noise might have on the man strung up and waiting for the resumption of his attentions than to improve their already fearsome edge.
‘He’s a hard man, my lord, a warrior you would have been proud to fight alongside had he been born to the tribe. I have caused him great pain already, but he has given me no more than the occasional grunt as my reward. I can increase the level of pain he suffers, of course. I can sever the muscles that make his arms and legs work and leave him a cripple, saw off his manhood and show it to him before I blind him, if you like.’ He looked back at the Roman, his eyes burning with defiance, before speaking again. ‘But in all truth I doubt that this will break him, and he would die from the blood loss very quickly, and leave your men without the reward of hearing a Roman scream for mercy.’
Drust grimaced.
‘Not what we’d hoped for. You have a better idea, I presume?’
The other man raised an eyebrow at the tethered Roman.
‘I would say that he seems to be motivated by the need to avoid alerting his comrades to his agony at all costs. I would also guess that he is a proud man, and that to cry out would be to turn his back on his pride, to give in and show weakness at the end of his life. I do not believe that the knives hold the key to his tongue, but I think that he will speak readily enough if you can find a way to threaten him with the loss of his dignity. You must put him under the threat of the most degrading end that you have at your disposal.’
Drust stared at him for a long moment before nodding his reluctant understanding and turning to face the naked prisoner, looking him up and down to assess the damage already done to him by the torturer’s knives before speaking.
‘Fetch water. I need him wide awake.’
A warrior stepped forward and emptied his water skin over the Roman’s head, and the cold liquid snapped his eyes open, wrenching him from the moment of respite provided by his loss of consciousness. Drust walked forward until he was close enough to the captive to prod his blood-smeared stomach.
‘Well now, Roman, my expert in the art of persuasion tells me that he believes you cannot be broken by the use of his blades. He believes that you are too proud a man to allow yourself the slightest expression of pain or fear. And to tell you the truth, I am minded to believe him. Look at you – no, seriously, take a proper look at what he’s done to you.’
The decurion stared back at him in silence with stone-hard eyes, their defiant conviction blazing back at the chieftain. Drust shook his head in mock sadness, turning away from his prisoner and looking out across the hundreds of men gathered to watch his humiliation.
‘No, you’ll keep your mouth shut no matter what I tell him to do to you, even as we wreck your body beyond repair, and at the end of that unhappy time all I’ll have for my men’s bravery in taking you from under the noses of your sentries will be a mutilated carcass of a warrior. Your fellow soldiers will revere you for the bravery of your death, and in time they’ll erect an altar for you, somewhere where thousands of them will see it, to give them pride and fresh strength. Perhaps they’ll name a new fort after you…’
He turned back to the captive with a half-smile.
‘All of which is hardly what was in my mind when I ordered my men to bring me a Roman to make some sport with. What I had in mind was some screaming, something to put the fear of the gods into your comrades, and not a glorious end for you. So, I think it’s time we tried something a little different. We think that you are a proud man, for whom any admission of weakness would be worse than death itself. So what, I find myself asking, would your reaction be to being degraded in the face of your comrades in a manner so gross that they will be revolted by what you have become?’
Cyrus’s eyes narrowed slightly, and Drust smiled quietly back at him, seeing the Roman’s face suddenly alive with the emotion he had been seeking to inspire in his captive.
‘I thought that might get your attention. You see, there are men in every army who find the life away from women too much for them, and who turn to their comrades for the pleasures of the flesh. You, however, don’t look like such a man. You probably make jokes about them, and use humorous names to make fun of the very idea, even though you know that this happens more frequently than you would ever admit to anyone from outside of your military world. And so what, I wonder, would your comrades think, what would they do, if we were to lash you up on the walls of this fortress and have a succession of my warriors bugger you in full view of your cohort. I have thousands of men, so I’m sure that a few of them will step forward when I offer the opportunity to fuck a Roman officer in the arse before we let my man with the knives finish what he’s started. Perhaps a dozen of them would be enough to take that pride of yours and tear it into pieces so small that a man would have to get on his hands and knees to find them. And I’ll guarantee you that nobody ever set up an altar to a man who got captured and ended up dying after taking a dozen barbarians in his backside.’
Cyrus glowered at him, his face twisted with repulsion and disgust.
‘Nothing to say, Roman? Perhaps we could pull your teeth and allow two men to fuck you from both ends, just to complete the picture for your friends over there. “Go to war with the Venicones”, they’ll tell each other for years to come, “and if the barbarian bastards catch you they’ll spit-roast you.” How about that?’
Cyrus spat a bloody wad into the dirt at his feet, staring down at the barbarian chief.
‘Can I trust your word, Venicone?’
Drust raised an eyebrow at the growled response, taken aback by the unexpectedness of the Roman’s retort.
‘Trust my word? Why would that matter to a man facing imminent death?’
Cyrus grunted his answer from between gritted teeth, his voice pitched low to make the tribal chief lean closer.
‘Because, King of the Venicones, I have information that I will trade for a quick and honourable death. I know where something is. Something that you have lost, and which can still be retrieved if you know where to look for it. If, that is, you have the balls to turn aside from your flight to the north.’
Drust’s eyes widened, and he stepped in close to the captive, whispering into the Roman’s ear.
‘Tell me exactly what it is that you’re talking about. If this is a trick I’m going to make you scream for mercy before you die.’
Cyrus grinned back at him through his pain, happy with the realisation that he had the Venicone chief hanging on his next words.
‘You’re missing something, Drust, something important. One of our soldiers found your golden torc in a tent, on the battlefield of your camp. The man you had entrusted to look after it was dead, with an artillery bolt through his spine, and so this soldier took your pretty piece of jewellery for himself. He tried to sell it to an associate of mine, who came to me for money to help him make the purchase, and so I know where that soldier is heading at this very moment, with your precious torc in his pack.’ He spat another wad of bloody phlegm on to the ground at Drust’s feet before speaking again. ‘If you promise me, on your honour, to grant me a quick and honourable death, then I will tell you who that soldier was, and where he’s marching. And I’ll give you a clue to help you decide. His cohort has orders to march to the north, to a place close enough to this that you can be in battle with them inside two days. All you have to do is guarantee me an honourable death, and I’ll tell you where.’
Arminius awoke from his temporary stupor to find Scarface sitting next to him under a clear blue sky, both of their horses contentedly cropping the grass where they were tethered a few feet away. He sat up with a gasp of pain, putting an exploratory hand to the lump on the back of his head, then looked about him, surveying the customary human detritus of any combat, hundreds of dead Selgovae lying where they had fallen, through pain-slitted eyes.
‘What the fuck? I remember hanging on to that bloody horse for grim life, but then…’
Scarface snorted a laugh.
‘But then your “bloody horse” took a header, legs all over the bloody place, jumped back up and booted you in the nut. I might well have pissed myself laughing if I hadn’t been so busy fighting off half a dozen of the hairy bastards, having left my spear stuck in the seventh.’
The German nodded, touching his head again as if to prove the story.
‘I was lucky not to get carved up, then?’
‘You were lucky that a certain young gentleman decided to hop off his own horse and fight the bloody Selgovae off you, that’s what you are, mate.’
Arminius sank back on to the grass and closed his eyes.
‘I might have guessed. How did he fare in the fight?’
‘The centurion will be back soon enough; he went to get his arm bandaged, and make sure that Prince Martos is all right, given that he managed to avoid being skewered by this shower of donkey wallopers. He kept the long-haired fuckers off you long enough for these bowlegged bastards to get their shit in a pile and come to the rescue, him and that big Selgovae monster we spared yesterday. He collected a scratch and a couple of dents doing it, but I doubt it’s knocked any more sense into him.’
Arminius got to his feet, his face taut with the pain in his head.
‘I’ll go and find him. And see who’s doing all that screaming.’
He found Marcus sitting in a queue of men with light wounds waiting for a harassed bandage carrier to attend to them, and dropped to the turf next to him, ignoring the indignant looks of the men behind him.
‘Scarface told me I’d find you up here. Any nice scars in the making?’
Marcus lifted the bandage covering his wound, revealing a foot-long slice up his left forearm, the blood that had welled from the open flesh already mostly clotted.
‘Nice. That’ll be a good one to show off to the ladies once it’s healed. Scarface said you got dented?’
He took the proffered helmet and examined the crease hammered into its surface.
‘Impressive. And a good thing that whatever did this didn’t get through it.’ A noisy commotion from the small group of warriors who had been taken prisoner, held captive under the spears of the legion cohort, made him wince. ‘Mithras, but I wish that shouting would stop! What are they doing to the man?’
Marcus lifted an eyebrow.
‘We took nineteen prisoners, including their leader Harn and both of his sons. I’d imagine the noise has something to do with what the Votadini would like to do to them.’
The German caught the slight bitterness in his tone and nodded his understanding.
‘Martos and his volunteers waited all night in the vicus for their chance to encourage the Selgovae to run for it. I suppose they had plenty of time to listen to the inhabitants of Alauna being raped and killed. Alauna being a Votadini settlement, you’ll have remembered…’
He slapped the Roman on the shoulder encouragingly.
‘I’ll go and have a look, you stay here and get that scratch sewn up.’
He stood, rolling his head on his thick neck, and then leaned back down to speak quietly in the centurion’s ear.
‘And thank you for standing over me when I was helpless. I owe you a life.’
He strode away towards the source of the noise. In the middle of a circle of variously amused, amazed and horrified cavalrymen, Martos’s warriors had erected a hasty tripod formed from the trunks of saplings felled from the copse behind which the cavalry detachment had taken shelter from view the previous evening. A group of his men had lashed a naked young Selgovae tribesman to the frame’s apex by his bound wrists, his feet tied together to prevent him from struggling and his feet barely touching the ground, requiring him to stand on tiptoe. When they stepped away, having gagged him to stop his shouts of protest, one man remained in place before the helpless prisoner, a long-bladed knife held in one hand. Scaurus and Martos were watching the preparations with apparent interest, while alongside them an older man was being restrained by a pair of burly legionaries. Catching sight of his master, the German strode across the space around the prisoner and stood before Scaurus with a slight bow. The tribune greeted him with a wry smile, returning the bow with a nod of his head.
‘You’ve recovered from your knock to the head, then, have you, Arminius?’
He nodded gingerly.
‘Apart from a headache that may be with me until the day I die, yes, Tribune.’
Scaurus shrugged, raising an eyebrow.
‘Perhaps this is what will happen every time I order you on to horseback? You managed to end up on your backside the last time as well. Since the young centurion can clearly handle himself well enough to save both his own skin and yours, perhaps I should return you to your normal task of standing at my shoulder and glaring at anyone that comes near me?’
The German bowed his head slightly.
‘I will, of course, accept any duty to which you choose to put me, but I should point out that I now owe your centurion a life.’
‘In which case you’d best stay close to him a little longer, I suppose. I believe that your horse was unhurt in your accident, so perhaps you should reclaim it and prepare for our next move. And now, if you’ll excuse me…?’
Arminius bowed again, watching as the tribune turned back to the barbarian being restrained by a pair of hefty soldiers beside him.
‘Have you seen enough of this to be sure I’m serious, Harn? I can’t say that I would enjoy having that young man tortured all that much, but then I’ve seen worse things done to my comrades over the years by men just like you, so please don’t imagine that it would trouble me in any way. And let’s not forget what we found when we searched the fort you’d just left in such a hurry.’ He looked at the fingernails of his left hand, nibbling at a rough edge before speaking again. ‘You know what treatment that boy will receive if I ask my ally Prince Martos here to let his man off the leash. In fact I’ll wager you know it better than most, given your master’s tolerance for his men’s brutality towards Romans, soldiers and civilians alike. Your man there will have his skin removed, one long strip at a time. Martos tells me that his man is an expert, and can keep his subject alive for up to a day while slowly but surely reducing him to a gibbering idiot with the pain of the whole thing. Or, of course, I can have your man there cut down and returned to his fellow prisoners. All that you have to do is swear to behave yourself, and provide me with just one little bit of help. Should you choose not to do so, I have quite a good supply of your men for these Votadini to play with. The same Votadini whose king your master Calgus murdered in cold blood, you will recall, and whose warriors were betrayed to us in order to remove the inconvenience they might have otherwise posed. I doubt they’re going to get bored of hearing the screams of a dying Selgovae any time soon. So, what will it be?’
Harn stared at his feet for a long moment before raising his gaze to stare into the tribune’s eyes.
‘You’ll spare that man his life?’
‘Yes. I will personally take my sword and cut him down from where he’s hanging.’
‘And you’ll keep these Votadini dogs from torturing any of my men?’
‘If you keep your side of the deal, yes. It won’t be hard, since they want what I want just as badly as I do. But I think you ought to listen to what it is that I want before you agree too quickly. Your man there will keep while we discuss how you’re going to help us liberate Martos’s people from yours. It’s either that, or we’ll all spend an entertaining day watching him peel your young lad there down to a strip of raw meat. And we have a plentiful supply of salt, should simple skinning get too repetitive.’
Rapax and Excingus swept into the hospital building in the middle of Felicia’s rounds that morning, brushing aside her assistant’s attempts to keep them from disturbing her. Excingus did the talking, while the praetorian stood impatiently in the background, tapping the floor with one foot in the manner of a man with a strong need to be elsewhere. The corn officer was insistent, despite the doctor’s protests that she had more than enough to keep her busy in the hospital.
‘I understand completely, madam, and I assure you that I wouldn’t be asking you to leave your patients if this wasn’t a matter of a man’s life. Of course, we can all go and see Tribune Paulus if that’s what’s needed, but in the time that will take, this centurion’s man will probably die…’
He stood waiting, while Felicia stared at her feet for a moment.
‘He has a broken leg?’
Excingus nodded quickly.
‘He slipped, jammed his foot into a gap between two rocks, then fell sideways. The sound it made was quite horrible. We didn’t dare to move him, given that we were so close to the fort and your medical skills.’
She nodded decisively, turning to her orderly.
‘Very well. Julius, could you fetch my instruments, please? And my cloak. Bring your own too, you might be required.’
Rapax stepped forward, shaking his head.
‘No need, lady, we’ll have all the men you need with us.’
Felicia raised an eyebrow at him.
‘And your men are trained hospital orderlies, are they? I might well need some combination of a man’s strength and a medically trained mind to free your man’s leg. He’s coming with me.’
The praetorian nodded his grudging assent, shooting a wry glance at his colleague.
‘As you wish, lady.’
The party were mounted and on the road within minutes, the doctor and her orderly at the heart of a tight knot of riders who were waved through the fort’s north gate, the purpose of their haste already made clear to the guards. They rode up the steep hill towards the wall’s North Road gate in silence and were waved through the opened gateway with equal lack of ceremony. The party carried on up the road for another mile, until Rapax indicated a path that branched out into the open country.
‘He’s about half a mile down here.’
The party rode down the narrow track single file, with Excingus leading and Rapax at the rear, until they rounded a bend and saw the distinctive figure of a praetorian sprawled in the grass beside the path. Felicia jumped down from her horse with Julius at her shoulder, unaware that Rapax was close behind them and had drawn his dagger from its sheath. As the doctor moved in to take stock of the casualty’s condition, he took a grip of Julius’s hair and pulled his head back savagely, opening up the orderly’s throat for a swift pass of the knife’s blade. Felicia turned back from the unharmed soldier with a look of puzzled annoyance that changed in an instant to horror as her orderly’s blood spurted across the grass, his body held upright only by Rapax’s powerful grip on his hair as his eyes rolled slowly upwards. The praetorian pushed his tottering victim to the ground, leaning down to wipe his blade on the dying man’s cloak before resheathing the dagger. Folding his arms, he stared back at the wide-eyed woman with a defiant glare, shaking his head slightly.
‘You would insist on bringing him with you.’
Felicia’s look of horror slowly transformed into understanding, her face hardening as she realised how badly she’d misread the two centurions’ intentions.
‘You want to use me to get to Marcus.’
Excingus nodded brightly over his brother officer’s shoulder, a faint smile wreathing his lips.
‘I told you she was clever enough to work it out on her own. Yes, my dear, we’re going to hunt down your fugitive boyfriend, and you’re going to provide us with the means of making sure he comes to justice quietly. Your Marcus Valerius Aquila has been evading justice with his barbarian friends up here for long enough, and with your invaluable help we’re going to put an end to his little game of hide-and-seek.’
Felicia shook her head defiantly, her chin jutting with anger.
‘You’ll get no help from me! Marcus is innocent of any charge your masters might throw at his family to justify theft and murder, and I won’t be part of your evil!’
The corn officer strolled forward until he was close enough to the white-faced, trembling woman to see the sheen of tears forming in her eyes. When he spoke his voice was softer than before, almost apologetic.
‘I’m sorry, my dear, but you most certainly will. When the time comes you’ll beg for him to save you from the indignities you’re being subjected to. You’ll scream like a pig with a spear in its guts, and you’ll provide us with all the distraction we’ll need to do the job that should have been finished in Rome. Tie her wrists and put her back on the horse, we’re riding to the north.’
‘So now we march north and free the Dinpaladyr?’
Tribune Scaurus nodded tersely, watching as the young Selgovae warrior was cut down from the hastily erected wooden frame from which he had been suspended.
‘Yes, Martos. Those are my orders, and now that you’ve terrified this Selgovae remnant into obedience for me we’ll strike as fast and hard as we can.’
The Votadini prince stared across at the captives, now huddled under the spears of the legion cohort and watching with evident resentment as the two centuries of Tungrians moved among their dead, carrying out the grisly task to which the tribune had set them.
‘Obedience? From the Selgovae? I would rather trust a pack of wolves. These men will watch and wait for their chance to fight back and restore their lost honour. It would be better if we put them to the sword now.’
Scaurus shook his head firmly.
‘No. With them I think we have a chance to get inside the gates of your tribal fortress. Without them we could be camped outside it for weeks, while the men Calgus sent to usurp you sit and laugh at us, praying to their gods for the snows to come early this year and abusing your people to their hearts’ content. The prisoners will live just as long as they serve us, and your job, Martos, is to watch them like a hawk and make sure that they do. And besides, I have another trick up my sleeve with regard to ensuring Harn’s total obedience.’
Tribune Licinius sat in the quiet of his tent, the daily rations report from the cohort’s quartermaster unnoticed on the table in front of him, while his subconscious teased at the conundrum presented by the events of the previous night. Only minutes after their confrontation, Decurion Cyrus had marched out into the darkness beyond the temporary camp’s walls and simply vanished into thin air. Logic told him that his officer must have been taken by barbarian scouts, and yet the man’s behaviour just before his disappearance had been sufficiently strange to justify Licinius entertaining the possibility that he had chosen to disappear into the wilds for reasons that were as yet unclear. A shout from outside the tent snapped him out of his reverie, and another put him on his feet and out through the tent’s door. A soldier dashed up to him, saluting hastily and gasping out his message.
‘Tribune! The Venicones have got Decurion Cyrus!’
He hurried to the camp’s eastern gate, pushing through the men gathered around the earth rampart to where a cluster of his officers stood watching the walls of the ruined Three Mountains fort in silence. A man’s body had been lashed to a wooden frame on the stone wall’s top surface, and a cluster of barbarians were gathered around him, staring out towards the Roman camp. As the tribune watched, his eyes slitted with anger, one of them cupped his hands to his mouth and bellowed something made unintelligible by the distance. Looking about him, Licinius saw that his bodyguard, ever mindful of his safety, had gathered around him. He made a quick decision, turning to the dozen or so officers staring at the scene playing out in front of them.
‘I need to see what’s happening here. Gentlemen, you and my bodyguard can accompany me to within bowshot of the walls. Any barbarian sufficiently brave to attempt an attack on such an ugly collection of specimens would have my utter respect, so I’m guessing we’ll be safe enough. And besides, I have the feeling that Drust wants us to see whatever it is that he’s arranged on that wall.’
He strode forward out on to the open ground between the cohort’s temporary camp and the fort’s blackened walls, his officers and bodyguard fanning out around him and keeping their eyes open for any sign of either ruse or ambush, until their tribune halted at a distance he calculated to be at the very edge of bowshot. The men waiting on the stone wall’s fighting surface parted, and Drust stepped forward, flanked by a pair of men with shields ready to deflect any attempt at missile attack. Putting his hands to his mouth, he bellowed a greeting to the Romans.
‘Greetings, Romans! I offer you a truce if you’d like to come closer, and watch the entertainment I have arranged for my men.’
Licinius looked at the commander of his bodyguard, a leather-faced double-pay with the pale lines of old sword wounds decorating his muscular arms, and raised an eyebrow in question. The veteran soldier stared at the barbarians lining the fort’s walls, and then grimaced and shook his head slowly.
‘Not if it were my choice, Tribune, I can’t guarantee to protect you if they have archers waiting behind the parapet. We should stay here.’
The tribune shook his head in turn, patting the other man’s shoulder.
‘That’s one of my officers they’re about to butcher up there. You’ll just have to do your best, should this turn out to be a way to draw us in close enough for an attack.’
He motioned the men around him forward with the flick of his hand, his face set in dour lines as they drew close enough to the fort’s walls to see the pitiful state to which their brother officer had been reduced. Barely recognisable as the proud and powerful decurion he had been less than twelve hours before, Cyrus had clearly been severely tormented since his capture. His body was a mass of cuts, its skin slicked with his blood, and his limbs were criss-crossed with the marks of a hot iron bar. Both of his eyes were closed behind swelling bruises from his initial beating, giving the impression that he was resting after his ordeal, gathering his strength for the last act in his gruelling drama. Licinius stopped barely twenty paces from the wall, nodding to the barbarian king.
‘We’re taking you at your word, King Drust. I would be failing in my duty to this man were I to refuse the opportunity to look into his eyes as he dies. And besides, the sight will help to strengthen my resolve to ensure that you end your days somewhere warmer and noisier, with a cord around your neck and your people either enslaved or scattered in their hiding places across the hills of your miserable land.’
The barbarian looked down from his place on the wall and smiled broadly, nodding at the Roman’s words.
‘Your safety is assured, at least until our business here is complete. As to your pledge to gift me a trip to your imperial city for a chariot ride and an inglorious death, I’ll respectfully decline. You’re going to need more than a few hundred horsemen to scatter my warriors, and from what I’ve heard your army has other priorities at the moment.’ He grinned wolfishly at Licinius, who in his turn kept his face blank of any emotion and gestured to the warlord to be about whatever it was he intended. Drust shrugged, lifting his hands in mock greeting. ‘Welcome, Romans! It was good of you to come so far north with us while we make the journey back to our homelands! Tomorrow you may ride alongside us for a while longer, if you wish, north to the hills of my people, and the ground my men know as well as the hilts of their swords. And there, I promise you, we can make some real sport, a proper hunt rather than this slow procession, with every step taking you a little farther away from safety. Whether you’ll still be the ones doing the hunting is a different question, of course…’
He paused, daring any of the men standing before the fort’s walls to defy him, and Licinius felt compelled to roar back the answer that sprang to his lips without any conscious thought.
‘It was our pleasure to make the journey alongside you, Drust! We especially enjoyed riding down those of you who failed to manage your gentle pace, and putting them out of their misery! That’s something we expect to be doing a lot more of in the next few days!’
The Venicone warlord threw his head back in a laugh, his reply lightning fast.
‘Aye, Licinius, tribune of the Petriana, as we enjoyed picking the shreds of horseflesh from our teeth once we’d finished our meal that first night. Although in truth we have so much meat now that your role of providing us with a convenient larder is really no longer necessary. And we may stay here a few days longer, if only to avoid our supplies going to waste.’
Licinius nodded, warming to the game the two men were playing, both of them ignoring Cyrus’s battered body hanging motionless alongside the Venicone king.
‘Yes, you were indeed fortunate to stumble over such a large cache of food. You should thank your gods that you took Calgus with you when you ran, I’d say, since such foresight has the mark of his cunning rather than any intelligence on your part. How is that slippery specimen of Selgovae duplicity? If he hasn’t managed to depose you yet it’ll not be for the want of trying!’
A long moment’s silence hung in the bright morning air, neither man willing to speak again until at length the Venicone king spat on the wall’s parapet and gestured to the prisoner lashed up alongside him, his arms and legs spread wide to render him helpless, and changed the subject to that which the Romans had been waiting for.
‘As you will see, my men bumped into one of your officers in the darkness last night, and so they brought him back to our camp to see if we could make a little sport of him before the time to meet his gods arrives.’ He paused, prodding the comatose body with one finger. ‘He’s provided us with little enough entertainment, but he’s about to make up for that with the rather extravagant way that he’s going to leave this life. You see, Romans, I’ve promised him an honourable death, to die on my men’s iron rather than in some depraved and degrading manner…’
The hairs on the back of Licinius’s neck stirred as if caressed by a cold breeze.
‘And why would you make such a promise, Drust, when every other man you’ve taken alive in the last month has died long and hard, with their honour flensed clean away by your men’s blades?’
Drust smiled down at him mockingly.
‘Because, Tribune, he spoke nicely to me. Now be quiet, and watch your man take his exit, unless you want me to summon my archers to chase you away with their ironheads whistling past your ears.’
He held his hand out, holding Licinius’s gaze with his own as one of his men put the shaft of a spear on to his palm, then turned with sudden speed and drove the weapon’s blade deep into the helpless decurion’s thigh, putting his weight on to the shaft to force the blade down through the limb’s thick muscle and out of its underside until there was no need for him to hold the wooden shaft pointing back into the pale sky. Cyrus’s eyes snapped open, and he strained at his bonds with knotted muscles, the cords in his throat standing out like bowstrings as the pain hit him in waves of red-hot agony, but no sounds left his mouth. A thin stream of blood ran from the wound, its paucity a testament to the amount of punishment that the decurion had already absorbed.
Licinius turned to find his first spear standing alongside him with a look that spoke volumes for his feelings about the man being tortured in front of them.
‘Whatever else I might think of the man I’ve got to admit that he’s got balls of brass.’
‘Agreed. It’s just a pity he seems to have had much the same between his ears last night.’
Taking another spear, Drust repeated the act, driving the weapon through Cyrus’s other thigh and watching with satisfaction as the Roman once more contorted silently at the agonising pain being inflicted upon him. The men around Licinius drew in sharp breaths or turned their heads away, dumbstruck at the torture their comrade was enduring without making a sound. Taking a sword from another of his men, Drust leaned forward on the weapon’s point, addressing the Romans arrayed before him in an almost conversational tone.
‘I promised to make his death honourable. I didn’t mention anything about it being quick.’
He pivoted and thrust the weapon’s blade into the helpless decurion’s guts, ripping it free in a stinking shower of blood and entrails. A deep groan of pain escaped the captive’s lips, and his body twisted hideously in the ropes’ unforgiving grip. Licinius spoke into the charged silence, raising his voice to a bark of command.
‘Decurion Cyrus!’
The writhing body stiffened, and Cyrus’s attention snapped down on to his commanding officer, his face distorted into a rictus of agony.
‘Decurion Cyrus, you are dying with honour in the face of a brutal and remorseless enemy. You deserve the highest praise for your fortitude and stoicism. Now, before you die, tell me what it is that you’ve given to this barbarian!’
He glared fiercely at the dying man, willing him to answer. Cyrus opened his lips to display his teeth, clamped hard together against his suffering, drawing a quick breath to reply.
‘Tribune!… I told him… about the Tung-’
Drust turned, ramming the sword into the Roman’s throat and stopping him in mid-sentence with a horrible gurgle as what was left of his lifeblood ran down into his lungs and killed him in a few seconds of frenzied struggle for breath. The Venicone king turned back to stare down at the Roman officers gathered beneath him, his face flecked with Cyrus’s blood and twisted in a snarl of frustration.
‘Very clever, Tribune. I either allowed him to tell you something best left between the two of us or put him out of his misery to close his mouth.’ He shrugged, a slow smile replacing the fury. ‘No matter. I have his secret, and it remains exactly that. And you, Tribune, all of you dogs, have a count of one hundred to get yourself away from my walls. On your way! ’
Ten miles north of the site of that morning’s skirmish the detachment turned off the route of their march north and built the customary temporary camp. With the earth wall raised and the soldiers taking their evening meal, Scaurus had called his officers together for a cup of wine before darkness fell. Canutius had been delayed by a problem with one of his centuries, but both of the Tungrian senior centurions had attended with alacrity upon receiving the invitation, and found Tribune Laenas already in attendance. Sitting outside Tribune Scaurus’s tent, cup in hand, First Spear Frontinius cast a jaundiced eye at the late afternoon sky and cocked an eyebrow at Neuto, shaking his head slowly.
‘Rain before daylight, I’d say.’
His colleague nodded his head sagely.
‘Yes. We should get them tucked up in their bedrolls early tonight; they’re going to have a heavy day of it tomorrow.’
Scaurus raised an eyebrow but made no comment, allowing Tribune Laenas to fall into the veteran officers’ time-worn trap.
‘Do you mean to say that you gentlemen can tell what the weather will be doing just by looking at the sky?’
Frontinius nodded readily, his face a study in innocence.
‘Yes, Tribune, when you’ve served on the northern frontier for as many years as myself and my colleague here, the weather no longer holds any mystery. And now, if you’ll excuse us…?’
He drank the last of his wine and stood to go, and Neuto, reading his expression, reached for his helmet and got to his feet.
‘Yes, you’ll have to excuse me too, Tribune, I’ve got a cohort to chivvy into their beds and a storeman to relieve of a new pair of boots.’
Laenas raised his hands to halt their departure, protesting at their apparent reluctance to further educate him.
‘Gentlemen, gentlemen, not so fast! You can tell that it’s going to rain from looking at that?’ He pointed up at the sky, the clouds edged with gold as the sun dipped towards the western horizon. ‘All I can see is the start of a sunset and a few clouds. What’s the secret?’
The two first spears shared a glance, waiting for a long moment before Frontinius shrugged and turned back to face the legion officer.
‘We’ll tell you, Tribune, but you must promise to keep our secret between us. We don’t want just anyone learning the secrets of frontier weather prediction.’
He stared at Laenas with a raised eyebrow, waiting until the Roman nodded his agreement, his face solemn.
‘Your secret, gentlemen, is safe with me.’
The centurions stepped in close, beckoning the tribune from his chair and gathering round him in a conspiratorial huddle. Frontinius stared at him levelly, as if taking a gauge of the man.
‘The secret of foretelling the weather in this harsh country is very simple, and yet known only to a few men. If we tell you this secret now, we are admitting you to a close-knit brotherhood of men who have this knowledge. Do you promise to keep it between us?’
Laenas nodded eagerly, his curiosity piqued beyond patience. Frontinius looked at his colleague, and Neuto nodded reluctantly.
‘I suppose we can trust a tribune of Rome, a gentleman with a sense of honour. Very well, Tribune. The secret of predicting the weather here on the frontier… and you guarantee to keep this between us…?’
‘Senior Centurions Frontinius and Neuto, the phrase “piss or get off the pot” is springing to mind. I’m sure you both have important duties to which you might be attending?’
The Tungrian officers nodded their understanding to a visibly irritated Scaurus, turning back to the tribune with pursed lips and raised eyebrows. Frontinius lowered his voice to a whisper, shaking his head almost inperceptibly
‘The tribune gets annoyed because we haven’t yet shared the secret with him.’
Scaurus spoke again without looking up from his scroll.
‘I heard that. Get on with it.’
‘Well then, Tribune, the secret of predicting the weather is this
…’
Laenas held his breath with the tension, his eyebrows raised in expectation.
‘Can you see that tree?’
Taken aback by the banality of the question, Laenas followed the first spear’s pointing hand to stare at a distant lone tree on the horizon.
‘Yes. Yes, I can see it.’
‘And how far away would you say that the tree is?’
‘Half a mile?’
‘Excellent. If you can see that tree, or any other object at that distance, then it isn’t raining.’
He stared at the Roman with a straight face, waiting for the other man to respond.
‘Yes… I’d be forced to agree with you.’
‘Excellent. So if you can see the tree, it’s not raining. However
…’ He raised a finger to underline the point. ‘Colleague?’
Neuto inclined his head gravely, taking up the thread.
‘If you can see the tree, and it isn’t raining, it soon will be.’
The two centurions stood in solemn silence for a moment, watching the tribune intently. For his part, they told their own officers later that evening, he seemed to take it in good part.
‘So if I can see the tree… if I’ve got this right… it will soon be raining.’
Frontinius nodded happily.
‘You’ve got the measure of it. Use your new knowledge wisely, though, many men would cheerfully kill to have such insight. We…’
‘You both have soldiers you could be beasting round the camp, if, that is, you wouldn’t rather stay and regale my brother officer with further attempts at tent-party humour.’
The two men took their tribune’s hint and strode away into their respective parts of the camp with a comradely nod to each other. Scaurus cocked his head to one side ostentatiously, clearly waiting for something, and after a moment an outraged bellow of admonishment rang out as one of the pair spotted one of his men doing something outside the closely regulated activity prescribed for the soldier in question.
‘Excellent! Normal service is resumed. Will you take another cup of wine with me, Tribune Laenas?’
The younger man paused for a second, as if expecting some further attempt at humour, then nodded his assent and sank back into his chair.
‘Your officers, it seems, are little different to mine. The first cohort’s centurions are always looking at me in that sideways manner they use to indicate my lack of suitability for my role in their closed little world.’ The bitterness in his voice caught Scaurus’s attention, and he dropped the scroll to give his subordinate his full attention. Laenas was staring out into the camp, his eyes unfocused as he gazed fixedly at the horizon. ‘They’re so secure in their certainty as to how everything works, and they give me so little help…’
Scaurus went into his tent and returned a moment later with a fresh flask of wine and two cups, pouring them both a generous measure.
‘Here, this might help. It’s the genuine Falernian, believe it or not, and it seems to have survived the journey in a more or less tolerable condition.’ He took a sip, raising an eyebrow in mute appreciation. ‘You were saying?’
Laemas shifted uneasily in his seat, taking a deep drink from his cup.
‘I’m not a crybaby, you understand. My father made sure that I got enough training as a boy that I would give a fair account of myself were I ever to see any fighting, and yet these legion men have a way of reducing me to helpless frustration every time I try to impose my authority on them.’ Scaurus watched him over the rim of his cup, taking stock of his officer’s state of mind as he spoke. ‘The battle to take the barbarian camp, there’s a good example. I had orders to break in from the north with this very cohort, a critical role, Legatus Equitius called it, and I was very clear with my officers that we were going to play our part to the full. And yet when we got within spitting distance of the objective my first spear started prevaricating, finding reasons why we weren’t ready to attack, and delaying our deployment until Licinius rode up and all but accused me of being afraid to advance into the enemy camp.’
Scaurus winced.
‘Gaius Manilius Licinius does have a very special way of communicating his disappointment.’
Laemas nodded, warming to his subject.
‘Quite so, but to make it worse, First Spear Canutius promptly started making it pretty clear to Manilius Licinius that his desire to get into action was being frustrated by my delaying tactics. Nothing I could challenge without looking even more of a fool, of course, but Licinius clearly went away with the impression that I’m not fit to command. And so I find myself here…’
‘… under the command of a social inferior and probably doomed to this ignominy for the rest of your short career?’
Laenas winced at the words, for all that Scaurus’s voice had been perfectly level.
‘Yes, I’m sorry for my poor showing at our first meeting, I really wasn’t thinking very clearly. Too busy feeling sorry for myself, I suppose.’ He took another mouthful of the Falernian. ‘Forgive me, colleague, I’m making a mess of this career on so many fronts I’m not sure what to do for the best, but I never meant to impugn either your office or your honour as a Roman gentleman.’
Scaurus smiled back at him.
‘Cheer up, Tribune. Your first spear clearly has a problem that we can easily remedy, and you’ll have plenty of chances to prove that there’s fire in your belly in the next few days. As for first spears Frontinius and Neuto, their humour is of a different kind to that you might be used to suffering. You show them that you’re fit to command and they’ll soon enough come round to your side. Now, will you take another cup? That one seems to have emptied itself all too quickly. We’ll drink to long life and glorious victory, and then I must spare some time for Prince Martos. I promised that I would read him the letters he captured during the raid on Calgus’s tent, and it’s about time I made good on the offer.’