Later that evening, with the evening meal taken and the three cohorts’ soldiers busy about their usual campaign routine of cleaning their equipment and improving the edges of their blades, the detachment’s tribunes and senior centurions came together in Scaurus’s command tent to discuss the next day’s march. Decurion Felix was ordered to attend as the commander of the Petriana’s detached squadrons, and he brought both Double-Pay Silus and Marcus with him, despite the sour looks that the gesture earned him from First Spear Canutius. Scaurus opened the discussion, pointing to a sketchy map of the ground that lay before them to the north.
‘Well then, gentlemen, I’ve ridden this route to the Dinpaladyr before, so I’ve made a start at drawing a map of the ground we’ll have to cross to make our approach. Martos has given me all the help he can, but he’s more of a warrior than a geographer, so I’m afraid that our knowledge of the route is still a little sketchy.’
‘Tribune?’ Double-Pay Silus stepped forward with an em -barrassed salute, drawing inquisitive stares from the assembled officers.
‘Double-Pay?’
‘Begging your pardon, Tribune, but I’ve been riding these hills since I was a lad. The Petriana used to mount security patrols in the rear of the northern wall when it was still manned. We spent most of our effort in the west, keeping the Selgovae on their toes, but we rode this ground as well, when we could spare the time. Even after the pull-back to the old wall we still got around a fair bit, making sure the frontier tribes didn’t mistake our retreat for weakness. I could add some detail to that map, if you’d like me to.’
Scaurus nodded, handing him a stick of charcoal. The cavalryman stood over the parchment for a moment, his eyes moving across its sparse detail, then put the charcoal to the map, drawing fresh lines with swift, confident movements.
‘The River Tuidius runs here, and meets the sea here, and it can be forded by infantry here – but by cavalry here, and here.’
Scaurus’s eyes narrowed, taking in the additional detail and its implications.
‘So we can only cross the river in one place?’
Silus nodded.
‘Yes, Tribune, unless we’ve got the time to build a bridge?’
The tribune shook his head with a grim smile.
‘Neither the time nor the engineers, I’m afraid. So, if the men that Calgus sent to take control of the Votadini have their wits about them, they’ll have scouts watching the ford and our element of surprise will be lost before we even cross the river.’
Silus shook his head.
‘Not necessarily, Tribune. As I said, these two points can be crossed by horsemen. The animals will have to swim, but I’ve done it myself more than once.’
‘How likely would it be for a body of horsemen to remain unobserved once they were on the far side?’
Silus nodded sagely.
‘A good question, sir.’ He drew on the map again, sketching in a range of hills that ran to the north-east between the river’s course and the Votadini capital. ‘The enemy scouts will most likely be waiting here…’ He pointed to a spot on the range just to the north of the infantry ford, ‘… but we’d be crossing here, ten miles to the west and well out of their view. If we then went over the hills to the northern side we could make out approach without their ever suspecting we were there.’
‘And if the Selgovae think to put watchers on that ford?’
Silus pulled a wry face.
‘At the worst they could kill every man in that detachment before we ever got our feet out of the water, Tribune. A handful of decent archers could pick us off without any trouble at all.’
A silence hung in the air for a moment, broken at length by the thud of Scaurus’s finger hitting the map at the spot indicated by the double-pay.
‘Very well, Double-Pay, you’ve just earned yourself a temporary field promotion to decurion. And if you can take a party of men across the Tuidius and win us back the element of surprise, I’ll ask Tribune Licinius to let you keep the title.’
Silus stiffened his back and saluted crisply.
‘Thank you, sir. I’ll get a party of volunteers together and make the preparations tonight. We can be across the river and on the far bank drying out our kit by early morning the day after tomorrow, and the road north will be clear by the middle of the day. It’ll take you that long to get across the ford at the usual campaign pace.’
Scaurus nodded decisively.
‘Then I suggest you get to it, Decurion. And now, colleagues, let’s see what shape our three cohorts are in after the day’s events
…’
Outside the command tent both Felix and Marcus shook Silus’s hand in congratulation, while the new decurion shook his head in bemusement.
‘All that time wondering if I could ever get the promotion, and then an officer I hardly know drops it on me without any warning.’
Marcus smiled wryly, clapping a hand on his shoulder.
‘Tribune Scaurus, as you are learning, isn’t a man given to over-considering an idea if he can see its potential. Besides which, we haven’t actually got across the river and dealt with the watchers yet, have we?’
Silus nodded briskly.
‘True enough. And I need thirty men that can swim. What about your men, Centurion, there must be a few of them without the infantryman’s usual hatred of water? After all, there’s no soap involved…’
Arminius, by now more or less recovered from the blow to the head that Colossus had dealt him during the fight earlier in the day, sat by the fire burning in the 9th Century’s lines and stared into its embers. Freed from guard duty by Scaurus’s edict that the men who had volunteered to form Silus’s cavalry squadron would need a full night’s rest, he had accompanied Marcus, Qadir and Scarface back to their century once their mounts were settled for the night. Now, with most of the century already rolled up in their cloaks after the day’s exertions, he found himself unable to sleep, and so had joined the century’s standard-bearer in the fire’s gentle glow. Morban was in an unusually reflective mood and the German, more used to finding the burly soldier a source of unceasing banter and rough humour, sat quietly and listened to his woes.
‘I’m forty years old next month, and I joined the cohort at the age of sixteen. That won’t mean much to you, I suppose – you barbarians are usually all dead before reaching such an age, I’d imagine…’
Arminius raised an eyebrow at the comment, but kept quiet as the standard-bearer ploughed on.
‘… but for me it might as well be fifty. I joined at the age of sixteen, and so I reach my twenty-five years’ service next year. Oh, they won’t throw me out yet, of course, too many good men died in the last six months for there to be any danger of that, but a standard-bearer past his twenty-five, well, there’s a blockage to another man’s promotion and that won’t do. Once the numbers are made up I’ll be politely taken to one side and invited to enjoy the fruits of my service. Which will boil down to being given my pension and told, nicely, mind you, to piss off and give someone else a chance to wave my standard around.’
Arminius nodded, his face an unreadable collection of lines and shadows in the firelight.
‘I can see the way of it. Other men will be ready to step into your shoes, and you will have to step out of them sooner or later.’
Morban shook his head sadly.
‘And in truth, German, and strictly between us girls, I won’t miss the job as much as I would have done ten years ago. Too cold in the morning, too hot by midday, never a drink to be had for weeks at a time and feet stiff with dead skin and sores. I’d swap it all for a nice little place in the Hill’s vicus in an instant. My own alehouse and a guaranteed supply of thirsty customers, except…’
He paused for a moment, and the German saw his opportunity to lighten the discussion’s tone.
‘Except you’d drink it all yourself?’
A spark of the Morban that Arminius had come to expect resurfaced in his blinking indignation.
‘No, you cheeky blue-nosed bastard, except for the boy!’
Arminius nodded again, having known full well the direction their discussion would take.
‘I had high hopes that my colleague Antenoch would take Lupus on when I retired, teach him his letters, and show him how to use a sword and shield. I hoped he’d make a better soldier out of the boy than ever I was. With the right learning there’s no saying what the lad might achieve, but with Antenoch dead that’s all gone.’
The German picked up a stick and poked the fire with it, summoning fresh heat from the dying embers.
‘You think the boy might have the makings of a clerk? I think not, Standard-Bearer. I never met his father, but I hear he was a warrior, and that he died at your battle earlier in the year with great honour.’
Morban’s face twisted into something between a memory of grief and one of regret.
‘A life wasted, and my son torn from me. If he’d been a little less of a warrior and a little more of a soldier he’d still be with us.’
Arminius shook his head slowly, a gentle smile on his face.
‘And yet he carried your blood, Standard-Bearer. He could no more have held himself back from the fight than cut off his own arm. A warrior has to fight, whether those of us left behind when they perish like it or not. And your grandson is no clerk in the making, not to my eye. He’ll be the same man his father was inside a few years… with the right training.’
Morban snorted.
‘Training from whom? Two Knives is too busy leading the century and trying to get himself killed, and there’s no one else I can trust with his welfare when I have to leave the service.’
He fixed a level stare on the German, daring him to disagree, and Arminius smiled grimly back at him.
Don’t try to be clever, Morban, I know your game. You seek to shame me into helping you, and perhaps to absolve you from your responsibility for the boy. He’s your grandson, and you cannot hand him off to another man so easily. However…’ He raised a hand to cut off the indignant standard-bearer’s ire. ‘… however, I do have a bargain to offer you, if you’ll listen.’
Morban cocked his head to one side, and kept his mouth shut.
‘I owe your centurion a life. He saved me from being butchered as I lay with my wits kicked out of me by that brainless mountain of horseflesh earlier today. He leapt from his horse and took on half a dozen of the enemy with nothing more than a pair of swords. He stood over me and saved me from the most shameful of deaths, and for that I owe him many times over. I do not take such a responsibility lightly, Standard-Bearer, and I will discharge it at any cost to myself that might be necessary. I have spoken with Scaurus, and for as long as my master is the commander of this cohort I shall serve this debt by watching over Centurion Corvus and keeping him from harm. However, like you, I was not created immortal, and in time I will age and my sword-arm will weaken. I will need a student to tutor in the skills of the warrior, with and without weapons, a young man who will grow to manhood and take over my duty of protecting the man sleeping in that tent. Your grandson will be my pupil, and with my training he will more than match his father in his skill at arms.’
Morban opened his mouth to speak, but closed it again as Arminius rode over him.
‘Your part in this will be a simple one, but unavoidable. You will provide him with an income sufficient to ensure that his equipment is of a standard to match his skills, and to achieve that you will need to keep yourself from drinking and gambling away your pay as soon as it hits the table in front of you. If you feel unable to keep this part of the bargain, then you will have to resign yourself to his being every bit as brave as his father undoubtedly was, but insufficiently trained to survive his first rush of blood to the head. As, I am forced to add, also appears to have been the case with his father, Mithras grant him rest.’
Morban sat silently, staring into the German’s face, his features unreadable. When he replied, his voice was taut with emotion.
‘You’ll take the boy on, train him to fight, and care for him until he can look after himself?’
Arminius nodded, the cast of his face as solemn as that of the man before him.
‘For as long as Scaurus is tasked to lead these men, yes. If he is ordered to leave you, then the task will become one for someone else. Until that day your grandson will have the closest thing to a father I can manage.’
In the darkness of the hospital the wounded guardsman woke with a start, and spent a split second wondering what it was that had snapped him from his sleep so abruptly before a big hand closed around his windpipe, pinching out his shout for help before it was anything more than an idea. A dark figure leaned in close to him and whispered in his ear, the words as harsh as the tone in which they were spoken.
‘You’ve got a big fucking mouth, Guardsman, and it’s going to be the death of you.’
The praetorian shook his head slightly, incomprehension and panic already mastering him, and he attempted to rise from the bed despite the lancing pain in his wounded thigh. His unknown assailant’s other hand reached into his tunic and took a firm grip of his testicles, exerting pressure strong enough to arch his back involuntarily. A long moment’s silence followed, the guardsman unable to speak while the other man waited patiently for him to start to asphyxiate. As he began to feel light headed from the lack of air the big man spoke again, the menace in his voice unmistakable.
‘I can burst these plums with a single squeeze, Guardsman. Keep still and I’ll let you breathe. Any attempt to call for help and I’ll watch you die blue faced and choking for breath.’
The grip on his throat eased slightly, enough to allow him to gulp down a breath of desperately needed air.
‘You’d best keep still while I tell you about this problem I’ve got, and how I expect you to help me deal with it. You, Guardsman, had a quiet little chat with your centurion earlier today. You thought I was asleep, but I’ve got sharp enough ears when scum like you are spreading gossip about things best kept private. While I was lying there with my eyes shut and my ears open, I heard someone else tell your officer that our lady doctor was ripe for breaking in. Which upset me more than a little, given that she’s to be married to my brother officer. Soon after that, I heard you tell him that she’s close to a centurion by the name of Corvus. And now here we are, less than a day later, and she’s missing, whereabouts unknown, but I’m told she was last seen riding out of the north gate with your centurion Rapax. From which I can only assume that he’s kidnapped her, and intends to use her to get to Centurion Corvus?’
The praetorian nodded his head slowly. His eyes had adjusted to the shadow in which his assailant had placed himself, and he found himself staring at the hard features of the auxiliary soldier from the bed opposite.
‘Where will he take her?’
If he’d been brave enough the guardsman would have laughed in the Tungrian’s face, but he made do with a momentary smirk.
‘I’ve no idea. They’ll probably go north, find some ground where they can take Corvus off guard, and then lure him in with the woman. When he gets close enough Rapax will most likely have one of his men fuck her, get her to make some noise and bring the boy in angry and unprepared. Perhaps he’ll even enjoy her himself. He’s had a lot of practice in making the women scream recently…’
The Tungrian cut him off with a fierce look of disgust.
‘So who’s this Rapax’s colleague?’
The praetorian couldn’t hold back the smile any longer.
‘Someone with more power than you could ever imagine. He’s a corn officer, if you know what that means. He can…’
The Tungrian sneered back down at him, flexing his fingers around the guardsman’s throat…
‘I know what it means. And that’s all I needed to know.’
He closed his fingers around the guardsman’s windpipe, crushing his larynx flat and pushing him back on to the bed, waiting while the dying man squirmed for breath and clawed at the hand that was killing him.
‘It’s a quicker death than you deserve, and an easier exit than your centurion Rapax will enjoy when I catch up with him.’
Tribune Paulus was clearly unused to having his decisions challenged by the lower ranks, and appeared utterly nonplussed to find an auxiliary centurion in front of his desk and making demands of him that he could only regard as extraordinary. Having said his piece, the bearded officer standing at attention before him stared obdurately at the wall behind him and waited for Paulus to respond. The tribune spun out a long, calculated pause before speaking, wanting the silence to unnerve the other man enough to take the edge off his apparent arrogance.
‘So, Centurion…?’
‘Dubnus, Tribune.’
‘Centurion Dubnus of the First Tungrian auxiliary cohort. If I’ve understood you fully, you’d like me to detail a full century to join you in some wild journey north?’
‘Yes, Tribune.’
In pursuit of Centurions Rapax and Excingus, who, you claim, have abducted the fort’s doctor and carried her away in the apparently mistaken belief that her husband-to-be is a fugitive from imperial justice?’
‘Yes, Tribune.’
‘These two officers being, I am forced to note, a praetorian and a corn officer. Representatives of both the praetorian tribune and the Emperor himself?’
‘Yes, Tribune.’
Paulus paused again, his eyebrows raised in an incredulous stare.
‘Are you fucking mad, Centurion? I have five combat-effective centuries with which to hold this fort against who knows how many Brigantian rebels who might be gathering to attack us at this very moment. I’ll remind you of what happened to the garrison of White Strength less than a month ago, and they had a good deal more men than we do. What is it that makes you imagine that I’m going to give you a century of my soldiers to chase after two men with the power to have any one of us – or all of us – tortured and executed at the merest whiff of treason?’
‘They have the doctor, Tribune, and…’
‘And if they’ve chosen to take her there’s really not all that much I can do to stop them, given their absolute power to hunt down the state’s enemies. Is there, Centurion?’
The centurion locked eyes with him, and held that gaze as he replied.
‘No, sir. You can’t. But I can. Give me the men and I’ll make the pair of them vanish as if they’d never existed.’
The tribune bristled, fear and anger combined in his incredulous tone.
‘You’ll make the problem go away, will you? And what if you don’t? What if this lethal pairing eludes you, and discovers what I’ve done? Why in Hades would I take such a risk?’
The centurion’s face stayed expressionless, but his eyes burned into Paulus’s with renewed intensity as he leaned forward, unconsciously accepting the senior officer’s challenge.
‘Because, Tribune, your legatus, Cohort Tribune Licinius and Cohort Tribune Scaurus have all put their faith and trust in Centurion Corvus. If these two so-called officers…’ he spat the word into the air between them ‘… are allowed to do their dirty work, then all three of those men will likely die alongside him in some way or another. If you want to avoid that, you have only to give me the soldiers and turn me loose.’
Paulus sat back and pondered the centurion’s point. A legion legatus and two highly thought-of tribunes would make powerful friends in the years to come. His mind turned, as it had many times since his interview with the praetorian and the corn officer, to his oldest friend in the world, north of the Wall with the Petriana and without any clue as to the doom bearing down on him.
‘Let’s imagine that I actually give you some legionaries. You’ll take them north and hunt down these men how, exactly?’
The Briton smiled down at him from his standing position, his face almost feral with the intensity of his confidence.
‘I am a hunter, Tribune. I learned to track and kill animals with my father and his people, the same people who are currently hunting down any Roman foolish enough to go into the countryside to the south of here without enough spears to make them think twice. And I know who it is these particular animals are looking for. I will hunt them, I will find them and I will kill them both.’
‘And my part in this matter? Can I trust you to keep your mouth shut?’
The smile changed slightly, some hint of the Briton’s contempt creeping into his expression.
‘Oh yes, Tribune, I’ll be very sure not to mention your name. You wouldn’t want to be seen taking sides.’
Marcus snapped awake at the sound of a high-pitched scream which put him on his feet before any conscious thought was fully formed. Ripping the eagle-pommelled gladius from its scabbard, he stepped out into the cold morning air in his bare feet, ready to fight. A dozen of the 9th Century’s soldiers turned on hearing the scrape of his tunic on the tent’s rough canvas flap, their surprise at the weapon in his hand turning to amusement as they realised the misapprehension he was under. Looking beyond their grins, he saw the German Arminius standing with a wooden practice sword, the boy Lupus facing him with his own half-sized practice weapon held ready to strike.
‘Don’t squeal at me when you attack, boy, shout at me like you’ve got a pair of big hairy balls! And you’re supposed to be carving my guts open, not trying to tickle me! Put your weight behind the blade when you thrust!’
Marcus strolled across to the pair, the watching soldiers parting to either side.
‘You’re teaching Lupus to fight?’
The German inclined his head in a slight bow, the closest he ever came to a salute.
‘I have agreed with Morban that the boy needs to learn the arts of combat if he is to be a soldier. One hour a day, every day, I will spend on his education with the sword. Someone else can teach him to ride, though.’
The Roman’s lips twitched slightly at Arminius’s attempt at humour.
‘It’s a good idea. He’ll be able to serve in two or three years, and he should have some preparation. But what, I wonder, will become of my equipment? There’s little enough time spent on it as it is…’
Lupus turned and pointed to the tent in which he cared for Marcus’s war gear, his high-pitched child’s voice clear and confident.
‘All cleaned and polished, Centurion, boots and belts shining, armour brushed, sword and helmet polished.’
Arminius patted him on the back.
‘Wait here.’
He put out a hand, silently requesting Marcus to accompany him to the tent in question. Inside, the centurion stood in silence for a moment on seeing the condition of his equipment.
‘Not bad. He’ll have worked half the night to get it this clean.’
Arminius nodded.
‘I sat with him and told him what to do, but it was all his own work. Once the idea of daily training was mentioned I could have told him to lick the soles of your boots clean.’
Marcus turned to the German with a serious expression.
‘You know what you’re letting yourself in for? The boy lacks a father, and Morban isn’t much better than nothing, given his usual choice of pastimes.’
Arminius nodded with a wry smile of agreement.
‘I know. I’ve promised your standard-bearer that I’ll play the role for as long as Scaurus leads your cohort, as long as he donates a regular portion of his pay to see the boy well clothed and equipped.’
Marcus snorted.
‘And no doubt he promised that much and more in the wink of an eye. Just make sure you’re standing next to him when he takes his turn at the pay chest, or he’ll turn his coin into used beer, a pair of tired whores and somebody else’s winnings before Lupus ever sees any of it. But for all of that, thank you.’
The German bowed again, a quiet smile on his face.
‘The boy needs a father’s guidance. And perhaps it will also be good for you not to be the one centurion on parade whose boots look like the floor of a legion latrine.’
Felicia woke from a troubled sleep to find herself looking into the eyes of the thin-faced corn officer, who had lain beside her staring intently until she awoke. He leapt to his feet with a chuckle, spreading his hands wide as if for applause.
‘You see, I told you! Stare at a sleeping person for long enough and that person will wake up!’ He turned back to his prisoner, holding out a hand with which to help her to her feet. ‘Come along, my dear, we have a big day today, lots of riding to do and no time for lying about!’
The doctor got up from the ground without touching his outstretched hand, looking about her to find the small camp a flurry of activity as the guardsmen packed their bedrolls and equipment on to their horses, few of them sparing her more than a glance as they worked. The praetorian officer walked across to her with a rough slice of bread wrapped around a piece of dried meat, his face creasing into a grin when she gestured her lack of desire for food. He reached out and took her hand, pushing the unappetizing food into her palm and wrapping the fingers around it.
‘Eat it now, or eat it later, but you’re going to want it some time today. We’ll eat again at nightfall, but between then and now we’ve a long way to travel in search of your boyfriend. Throw it away if you like, but there’ll be no more until then, not unless you’ve something tasty hidden somewhere about your clothing.’
One of the soldiers turned and grinned ferociously at the dismayed woman, his hands still busy with a reluctant buckle. The tunic beneath his padded arming jacket was a different colour from that of the men around him, and his armour constructed of segmented bands of iron where theirs was made of hundreds of overlapping bronze scales.
‘I’ll search her, Centurion. You just say the word and I’ll be up that little missy’s skirts so fast she won’t…’
Rapax spun on the spot, putting his hands on his hips and shaking his head sadly.
‘You can keep your hands and your thoughts well away from this one, Soldier Maximus, unless you want your end to come considerably sooner than I’d imagine you’re planning.’
He stared levelly at the soldier until the other man lowered his gaze respectfully, than raised his voice to be sure he was heard by every man in the clearing.
‘I won’t tell you worm-beaters this more than once, so let’s all be very clear about it. This woman stays untouched until I say her time has come. I want her screams of desperation when we get her boyfriend within earshot to be exactly that. Screams. Not the tired moans of a woman that’s already been ridden half a dozen times by you whore mongers. Any man that doubts me in this only has to lay a finger on her and I’ll relieve him of the hand it’s attached to. You cross me on this one at your peril, gentlemen. Of course, once Marcus Valerius Aquila’s cold on the turf next to her you can draw lots for her for all I care, but until then… you have been warned!’
Felicia shivered, pulling the blanket in which she had slept closer about her and crushing the bread and meat between the fingers of her right hand as she remembered the casual ease with which Rapax had murdered her orderly the previous day. She felt the sheath of Dubnus’s knife hard against her thigh, and silently vowed to use it on herself before submitting to the ordeal so casually promised by Rapax.
After the cohorts had taken breakfast, the cavalry squadrons mounted up and headed north, fanning out across the route that the infantry cohorts would be following behind them, as they ground their way up the road that paralleled the east coast all the way to the Tuidius’s estuary. Double-Pay Silus and Decurion Felix had briefly discussed the day’s march for the former’s squadron of volunteers, and agreed that it would be best if they headed straight up the road’s relatively smooth ribbon, both for the sake of speed and to avoid the risk of the inexperienced riders among them coming to grief on the rough moorland that flanked the road’s arrow-straight course on both sides.
Arminius rode alongside Marcus in the morning’s pale sunlight, his green-eyed stare alternately flicking across the horizon and then down at the road’s cobbled surface.
‘It’s a good joke on someone’s part, to have me riding this monster along the very surface on which the slippery-footed bastard nearly managed to kill me yesterday.’
He touched the rough bandage tied around his head with a wry grin, but Marcus, sneaking a sideways glance, saw that his right hand had a good handful of the horse’s mane along with the reins.
‘Yesterday was pure accident. You’ll be all right today, especially if you just relax your posture a little and let the horse do the hard work. The poor animal must think he’s got a ceremonial statue on board.’
The German snorted disparagingly, but when he thought the Roman was no longer watching him he experimentally loosened the firm grip of his thighs on Colossus’s flanks, allowing himself to sink into a more relaxed seat. Tempted to praise the improvement, caught out of the corner of his eye as he pretended to scan the horizon, Marcus took one sideways glance at the look on the German’s face and kept his mouth firmly shut. Another mile up the road the German broke his reverie with a sudden question.
‘The order was for men who know how to swim to form this new detachment, and so here we are. That means there’s a river to cross. And after that…?’
The Roman raised an eyebrow.
‘It’s a good thing for you that I was listening at the officers’ meeting this morning, and not just admiring the unaccustomed shine of my boots. Martos thinks it’ll take two days to get the infantry close enough for an attack on day three, as long as they keep bashing along at the thirty-mile-a-day pace. They’ve got the easy job, since all they have to do is slog it north until they get close enough to the Votadini fortress to fight. In the meantime we’ve got to make sure that their approach goes unnoticed and unreported back to the men that Calgus sent to take control of the Fortress of the Spears. So you won’t have to worry too much about having these stones under your beast’s feet for very much longer.’
Arminius rode on in silence for a moment, his face creased in thought.
‘So we take their scouts, or just kill them. We make our way in close to the fortress under the cover of darkness, or bad weather, but even if we do manage to get all three cohorts in place outside their walls unannounced, how do we break in without any of the usual artillery the legions use to knock down enemy walls? Even if we surround the place, that only makes the bloody Selgovae more likely to run wild and fuck every living thing left breathing inside the fortress to death. Which would seem to defeat the purpose of our trying to rescue them.’
Marcus gave him a sidelong glance, a half-smile on his lips, and the German bridled at the thought of knowledge to which he was not privy.
‘You already know, don’t you?!’
Marcus grinned, leaning back in his saddle and yawning extravagantly.
‘If you’d been in your usual place at the commander’s conference, standing guard at the door with one ear inside the tent, rather than devoting your mornings to the martial education of undeserving children, you’d know too.’
Arminius leaned out of his saddle, poking the Roman in the shoulder and giving him a reproachful glare.
‘To think that I stood over that child until I could see a shine on those boots of yours, only to be repaid with mocking laughter. You’re a hard man, Centurion Corvus.’
Marcus looked about him ostentatiously, as if seeking to avoid being overheard, despite the fact that they had fallen thirty paces behind the riders ahead of them.
‘I probably shouldn’t share this with anyone not invited to the briefing, but since it’s you…’ He beckoned the German to bring his head closer, muttering his next words in the other man’s ear. ‘… all you need to do is find out what it was that the Fifth and Ninth Centuries were doing yesterday, while Martos was persuading Harn to cooperate with us. When you know what it was they were collecting from the men we killed, you’ll have a fair idea of the answer to your question. Now let’s see how these beasts feel about having a bit of a trot, or we’ll fall so far behind the squadron that the leading Tungrian century will overtake us. And I’ve no desire to find myself subjected to the kind of humour that would inspire. Have you heard the songs they sing about the cavalry?’
‘Why the bloody hell aren’t the bastards moving?’
Tribune Licinius turned to the speaker, his first spear, with a wry smile.
‘They’re not moving, First Spear, because they know very well that we can’t stay here and watch them for ever. Not enough food, for one thing, given the impoverished nature of the game in these parts, and bigger fish to fry for another. My orders are explicit – to harry the Venicones until we’ve destroyed them or there’s just no point to it any more, and then to ride south to join the campaign against the Brigantes. Drust ought to know that I don’t have the luxury of sitting and watching him for very much longer, and if he’s not bright enough to have worked it out I’m absolutely bloody sure that Calgus will have made sure he knows which way the wind’s blowing. The longer we sit here watching a bunch of savages who’re out of the fight as far as this particular rebellion goes, and as a consequence doing absolutely nothing of any value, the itchier my feet are going to get.’
His subordinate nodded his understanding.
‘So we head south, then?’
Licinius stroked his beard for a moment.
‘Yes. Sort of. Put the word out, as we discussed. It’s time for a little bit of subterfuge.’
When the call went out for a volunteer to watch the barbarians from hiding, once the cavalry wing was away over the hill and apparently headed south, one soldier put his hand up without hesitation. He stepped forward to face the man who ruled his world with quiet confidence, sure that his long-practised skills would see him safe no matter how thorough the Venicones might be in their inevitable search for spies. Licinius paced around him before taking him to one side and speaking quietly in measured tones, as if sensing the inner calm that fuelled the man’s self-belief.
‘Soldier Caius, isn’t it? Well, Caius, you know why I need a man to stay behind and watch this rabble while the rest of us are seen to ride south? I don’t have the luxury of waiting for the Venicones to move, so instead I must use deception to bring them out of their hole. So tell me, Soldier Caius, how will you carry this trick off? The bastard that leads that rabble will promise to reward the man who finds you beyond his dreams, because he will know beyond a doubt that you will be lurking somewhere within sight of those walls, waiting for them to make their move. You know what they did to Centurion Cyrus?’
Caius nodded, just a touch of obstinacy showing in his face at the attempt the tribune was making to talk him out of the reward he’d been told was on offer, if he survived the barbarian search, and delivered news of their movements to the riders lurking far enough to the west to be undiscoverable.
‘You heard that he took a long time dying, and left this life with his guts cooling in a wide pool of his own blood? And you’re still determined to take this risk?’
Caius nodded again, with more pride than irritation this time.
‘So tell me, just how do you plan to live through the hours after we leavathen, and yet still keep your eyes on their camp?’
Caius looked him in the face before replying, his own face set in an expression of utter confidence in his own abilities.
‘Tribune, before I was a soldier, I was a cattle thief. I was the man that watched the herds until the men paid by the farmers to keep us away from their animals were distracted. I would watch for days at a time, and never once did anyone catch sight of me. I’m going to dig myself a hide, and when it’s done I ask that you should walk away for fifty paces before turning back to look for me. Walk closer, and every few paces look again, until you’re back where you started. Then decide if you believe I can perform this task for you. I shall need my brother to help me with this. He serves in the same tent party.’
And with that he took up the sharp-bladed spade he’d carried with him from his tent and set to work, quickly digging out a two-foot-deep trench long enough to accept the length of his body lying flat, while his brother went to find branches of the right thickness and cut them down to the necessary length, dropping twenty of them at his feet and then standing back to watch him work his magic. Digging each one of the sticks into one side of the trench, two inches below the hole’s lip, and then forcing each one’s other end laterally into the facing wall’s earth, he inserted them at finger-length intervals to form a slatted roof to the hide, then arranged the waiting turf strips across them in exactly the order they’d been removed. Working with slow and painstaking care, he made sure that the joins between each piece of turf were invisible, packing small sticks between the roof slats and the turfs where the resulting effect looked unrealistic, working until the hide’s roof appeared no different to the ground around it. Nodding to his brother, he slid into the remaining gap with painstaking, delicate care, and then watched from below ground as the last turf was packed carefully into its place to complete the deception.
Standing to one side and watching, Licinius’s face remained impassive, but his eyes narrowed as the soldier wriggled into his hiding place and the last turf was eased into the deceptive layer of cover arranged over the trench. With one final adjustment, a gentle touch to slightly flatten the turf, the remaining brother turned to face him and saluted, gesturing with a hand for the tribune to conduct the test that had been requested of him. Licinius nodded to him and turned away, walking a brisk fifty paces before turning back to scan the ground beneath which he knew the man was hiding. While he’d had no expectation of discerning any clue as to the hide’s location at that distance, he was at first impressed and then bemused by the lack of any betrayal of its presence the closer he got to the spot where he assumed it to be. After a moment more he was standing more or less where he’d started, looking about him with resigned amusement.
‘Go on, then, show me where he is.’
Caius’s brother let out a piercing whistle, clearly intended to be heard in the hide, and to the tribune’s astonishment the ground at his very feet erupted upwards, making him step back involuntarily as the hidden soldier burst from his hide with a broad grin.
‘Jupiter’s hairy balls! I nearly died of bloody shock!’ Putting a hand to his chest and rolling his eyes, Licinius peered down into the freshly revealed hole. ‘I would never have believed it. Can you do this at night, so that the blue-noses don’t have the chance to see you digging yourself in?’
‘Yes, Tribune, with enough moonlight to work by the result is no different.’
The tribune turned to his first spear, waiting impassively to one side.
‘Very well, then, it seems that we have a scout. Detail a tent party, a steady one, mind you, to take this man and his brother out tonight, and dig him in somewhere with a good view of Three Mountains. Make sure it’s well away from anything that the blue-noses might be poking with their spears once we’ve ridden off tomorrow. We don’t want any of them falling through Soldier Caius’s turf roof, do we? And detail a party of message riders to wait for him at a safe distance, ready to bring us the news once Drust has his savages on the move. I don’t have a bloody clue where he’ll lead them, but I’ll bet you a flask of Falernian to a cup of warm piss that the one place he won’t be taking them is straight back home.’
Dubnus surveyed the men the tribune had detailed to his command with a jaundiced eye, turning back to the centurion who had guided him to their barrack and called them on to parade to meet their new officer.
‘What the fuck happened to this lot? They look like they couldn’t fight their way out of a whorehouse, never mind take their iron to the blue-noses.’
The legion officer looked down his nose at the remains of what had clearly been a century at some point.
‘That, friend, used to be our Third Century. Our genius of a tribune decided that it would be a good idea to send a century south to scout the road to Sailors’ Town.’ He shook his head, raising an eyebrow at his auxiliary colleague that encompassed the idiocy of senior officers across the empire. ‘Eighty men sent marching south straight into a tribal revolt. I wouldn’t have fancied my chances of getting to Sailors’ Town with anything less than a full cohort. They got about ten miles south before the local nutters decided that enough was enough and jumped them in strength. Their centurion, a decent enough officer and a friend of mine, as it happens, seems to have realised that they’d bitten off far more than they could chew, but that they’d all be chopped to ribbons if they ran. So he rallied them, and led the front rank into the fight with their shields up and their swords drawn. It seems the rear rank weren’t quite so keen…’
‘And this is the rear rank?’
‘Right in one. Bastards. The last thing they saw as they ran for it, or so their watch officer told Tribune Paulus, was their centurion’s head being waved around. This lot are good for nothing more than scraping the latrines out, in my opinion, so if you’re relying on them to put up a fight for you once you’re north of the Wall… well, I’d be thinking very carefully before depending on any of them. And look out for the watch officer, he’s a damage case. He got knocked about by one of his men once they were back in camp, and it’s not done him any good.’
Dubnus nodded his thanks, watching the other man walk away until he turned the corner and disappeared from view. Turning back to face the ragged lines of soldiers, few of whom were managing to meet his level gaze, he folded his arms, biceps bulging against his mail armour, and looked up and down their ranks with a look of undisguised contempt.
‘So you’re what’s left of the Third Century, are you? You’re the men that abandoned your mates in battle and legged it home with your tails between your legs, or so the story goes. Anybody want to tell me otherwise?’ He waited for a slow count of ten, running his eyes slowly over each man’s face in turn and looking for any sign of dissent. ‘No takers, it seems. So, you really are the lowest of the low, men that not only turned their backs on a fight but who left their officer, chosen man and forty good men to the bluenoses.’
He walked slowly, deliberately, across the open space to the first rank, his face twisted with disgust.
‘If this were my cohort you’d already have drawn lots to choose which four men would get beaten to death by the rest of you, and then you’d have been sent out again in the company of real soldiers in search of another fight. The legions must be getting soft, allowing men like you to fester in your barracks rather than set a nasty bastard of a centurion on to you, with orders to clear out the rot.’ He went face to face with the watch officer, his nose less than six inches from the other man’s bruised features. ‘Well, gentlemen, and fortunately for the army, I am that nasty bastard of a centurion. Life’s about to get interesting for you men, and not in any sort of way you’re going to enjoy.’
Turning away, he held his vine stick up for every man to see.
‘Now some of you will already be thinking that I’m not a legion centurion, which means that I have no power over you. And you’d be right…’ He waited for a precisely judged moment before continuing again. ‘… and yet so horribly wrong.’ Turning back to face them, he slapped the stick into his calloused palm with a smack that made more than one man twitch involuntarily. ‘You see, it’s true, I’m not a legion officer, which gives me no formal power over you. And yet since I’m not part of your legion, I can do whatever I like to any or all of you tunic-lifting cowards and get away with it. Anything. I. Like. So, and here’s where we see who’s got any balls about them, do any of you useless ration thieves want to take me on, man to man? If any man can put me down I’ll walk away and leave you to stew here in your filth. Come on, there must be one man out there that fancies taking me on. No? All right, then, any two of you. Any two men that think they could put me on my back. Come on!’
The century stood in silence, some of the soldiers shivering under his angry gaze, but not a man moved a muscle. Dubnus glared back at them, his mask of anger fading slowly to a sneer.
‘No? The offer stands, gentlemen. If any two of you can put me on my back I’ll leave you all in peace. Just one warning, though, in case one or two of the smarter among you wonder if it still counts if you try to hit me from behind. The answer is yes. It still counts. But if you decide to try it, make sure your first punch is a good one. Because if you don’t put me out of the fight with that first punch, I’ll break one or even both arms of every man involved, depending what sort of mood I’m in. And now, gentlemen, you’ve got a count of five hundred to fetch your marching gear and present yourselves in formation on the parade ground, ready to march north. Full armour, shields, spears, swords and your packs. Whoever looks after the century’s cart had better be quick, because I want it loaded with your tents and ready to move inside another five hundred. Any man not on parade by the time I’ve strolled up to meet you will soon be getting used to the feel of my vine stick on his back. Move!’
After the lunchtime meal the volunteer squadron turned east, away from the road’s course towards the east coast and down a long shallow valley that ran north-west for miles, down to a river plain lost in the misty haze. Double-Pay Silus looked down the valley’s long slope and smiled happily, turning back to Marcus and pointing to the palm of his right hand.
‘Well, Centurion, this is my ground now. I’ve ridden these hills a dozen times or more over the years, and I know it as well as I know this skin. The road runs almost to the coast, where the Tuidius meets the sea, but we’re going to ease down this nice little valley and leave the stone path to the mules…’ He glanced quickly up at Marcus, but found his officer’s face set in a wry smile. ‘… if you take my meaning. They’ll follow the road until it finishes close to the river late this afternoon, given that they’re forced-marching, and camp out of sight of the ford tonight. Tomorrow morning they’ll turn west to find the ford and they’ll probably be crossing by mid-morning, ready to climb the hills on the far side of the valley. All of which will allow plenty of time for anyone set to watch for their approach to get a warning back to the Dinpaladyr, after which any idea of taking them by surprise goes out of the window.’ He raised an eyebrow to Marcus, his face alive with the prospect of a hunt. ‘And there’s our opportunity. Anyone who’s been set to watch for any sign of Romans is going to watch the road, since that’s the way they know our infantry to make their approach. We, on the other hand, can sneak quietly down this nice little valley as far as the edge of the river’s plain, cross it unseen when it’s misty, early tomorrow morning, and then turn east and flush out any watchers in the hills on the far side before they even know we’re there. And if we can deal with the watchers before they ever get sight of the infantry, then they can make their approach to the fortress of the spears with the advantage of surprise. And your improbable plan for getting inside without starting a massacre might just get a chance to work, eh, Centurion?’
By late afternoon the exhausted soldiers of Dubnus’s temporary command were marching on little more than willpower, and the fear that whatever momentary relief might be gained from falling out of the line of march would be far outweighed by the punishment that their tormentor would bring down on them in the event that any man flagged. The auxiliary centurion had marched alongside them without any sign of discomfort since the half-century had marched through the Noisy Valley gates, despite the rumour that he had discharged himself from the fortress’s hospital with a spear wound not yet completely healed.
‘It’s a right bastard, this road, don’t you men think?’ Dubnus’s voice rang out along the small column as steady as if he were standing at ease, not marching along beside them at the standard pace. ‘I’ve never liked it. The bloody thing goes up and down like a whore’s skirts, so that one moment your calves are burning with the climb, and then the front of your legs feel like they’re being caned with the pain of stopping them from running away with you in the dips. Whichever idiot engineer laid this one out straight needed his head examined.’
He looked up and down the detachment’s length with a grim smile.
‘On the other hand, it does provide you ladies with something a bit more testing than lazing around your barrack waiting for the tribune to decide what to do with a half-century of cowards.’ A man in the file closest to him allowed a hint of a scowl to show on his face, and the auxiliary centurion bore down on him, putting his mouth six inches from the soldier’s ear before speaking loudly enough for the entire detachment to hear him. ‘Ah, so at least one of you doesn’t like being called a coward. A pity that he’s stuck with the rest of you, then, isn’t it?’
The unit was breasting yet another crest, revealing the shape of a burned-out fort at the summit of the next hill. Dubnus turned and walked backwards, pointing his left arm at the shattered ruin coming into view.
‘That, soldiers, is our home for the night. Fort Habitus, named after a legion centurion who served here soon after the Wall was first built.’ He turned back to the line of march and strode alongside the detachment’s front rank. ‘Habitus was a proud old bastard by all accounts, old enough that he should have retired, but the locals weren’t all that happy when the Wall went up and divided them from each other, and they expressed that unhappiness by killing Romans whenever and wherever they could, given the chance. Anyway, old Habitus was ordered to take his century out on patrol one day not very far from here, or so the story goes. He probably thought that patrolling in such limited strength was a good way to get attacked, but he was too much of a soldier to question orders and so off they went.’
He spat on to the road’s surface.
‘Poor bastards. They were ten miles or so from camp when the local blue-noses jumped them. Sounds familiar, eh? The barbarians were three hundred strong, or thereabouts, more than three of them for every man in the century. Old Habitus had seen it all by that stage of his career, of course, and he knew that if he allowed his men to run they’d all be dead inside a count of five hundred, and so he shouted at them to form a square, to stop the tribesmen from getting round their flanks, and to stand and fight.’
He glanced across their ranks, finding every man’s face turned to his and their expressions taut with interest.
‘And fight they did. Retreating when they could, with blue-noses surrounding them on all sides and the day wearing on into afternoon, and still they fought. A wounded man was a dead man, that far from help, and more than one dying soldier tried to take one or two of the savages with him by stepping out to fight man to man, but for the most part they held their ranks and slowly hacked their way back along the route they’d come earlier in the day. They left a trail of corpses behind them, their own and those of the tribesmen attacking them, but they held their nerve even when half of them had been killed and the remaining men were almost dead on their feet. The trumpeter kept calling for help, when he wasn’t spearing blue-noses, and eventually, with evening drawing on, they heard the sound of an answering trumpet. There were Roman soldiers close by, and an end to their torment. The barbarians, well, they knew that their chance to take a centurion’s head was slipping from their grasp, so they mounted one last wild attack, swarming around the detachment’s shields in a desperate charge, but old Habitus shouted for his men to hold on for just a little longer, and his soldiers stood firm in a circle of men that shrank with every casualty until another three centuries came over the hill and chased off the barbarians. There were thirty of them left standing, and not many of them without a wound of some kind, but they marched back into their camp with their heads up and their spears black with dried blood.’
He paused for a moment before continuing. The detachment was almost at the top of the hill, and the fort’s burned and shattered timbers were looming on the skyline.
‘Centurion Habitus was killed before his century was relieved. He stopped a spear in the back of his neck that dropped him like a sack of shit, poor old bastard. The men that survived said that they’d all have died in the first hour if it hadn’t been for him bellowing at them to keep fighting, and that all the way through the fight he had a little smile on his face, as if he knew what was coming before the end. They named the fort after him to act as an example to the rest of the army…’ He raked a hard stare across their faces. ‘… and to you, if you have the guts to follow it. Right, then, off the road here and into the fort. Get yourselves fed and then settle down for the night, one man from each tent party to stand guard with a two-hourly relief. And if I find any of you sleeping on guard there’ll be no need to draw lots for who’ll be beating you to death, because I’ll already have done the job with my bare hands.’
Later in the evening, before darkness fell, he called the watch officer to him with a request that raised the other man’s eyebrows.
‘Help me get out of this armour, will you, Titus? I can’t bend enough to slide out of it.’
The watch officer shrugged and called another soldier over, the pair of them lifting the heavy mail armour from their new centurion’s shoulders while he squatted to allow them to pull it clear. With the armour removed Dubnus pulled off the padded arming jacket and tunic that he wore beneath it, revealing his muscular upper body to the watching soldiers. A long strip of linen was wound around his stomach several times to form a thick bandage, and tied in place by its trailing ends, and as they watched he stripped it away, winding it up into a neat roll of cloth. As the linen fell away from his stomach it revealed a vivid red scar an inch wide, and Titus grimaced at the sight, his bruised face twisting in sympathy.
‘Spear?’
Dubnus nodded curtly, wondering whether he was taking too big a risk in letting the soldiers see his weakness.
‘Yes, two weeks ago at the battle of the Waterfall. The tattooed bastard put the bloody thing clean through my mail and skewered me from front to back. It’s healing well enough, but it still hurts like the blade’s still in there when I try to bend.’
He watched as the realisation that their new officer was not as invulnerable as he seemed sank into the soldiers’ faces and laughed at them, putting his hands on his hips with a smile.
‘Any two of you fancy having a try at me now?’
One by one they looked away, until only the watch officer held his gaze.
‘You’re not recovered from a spear wound and you’ve still got the apples to come north looking for a fight? Why?’
Dubnus smiled wryly, stretching wearily.
‘I’ll tell you once we’re on the road tomorrow morning. If, that is, I’m still alive tomorrow morning.’