The volunteer squadron camped in the cover of the shallow valley that night, within a few minutes’ ride of the River Tuidius. Silus had calculated that any watchers would most likely be hiding farther to the east, keeping watch on the ford that the cohort would use to cross the Tuidius rather than the apparently unfordable stretch of river to its west, but he was nevertheless loath to abandon the valley’s cover. They spent an uneventful night, and awoke at dawn to find, just as Silus had predicted, that the river’s plain was wreathed in a thick mist that restricted visibility to no better than a hundred paces. The newly promoted decurion gathered his men about him, his words made dull by the mist’s muffling curtains of vapour.
‘I was counting on a nice thick layer of river fog. It always happens at this time of year once the nights get cold, and it means that we can get across the river with no risk of anyone seeing us. So there’s no time for breakfast now, we need to get swimming before it lifts. Get your kit packed but don’t wear anything heavier than your tunics and your cloaks to keep you warm while we ride down to the river. Your armour and weapons will need to be strapped to your saddles, so make sure you roll your mail up nice and tight.’
The squadron followed his lead down to the river’s edge, each man watching the horse in front of him intently as the mist gathered in thick curtains that curtailed visibility to a few feet in some places as they made their way across the river’s flat plain. Silus gathered them around him again at the water’s edge and pointed to his own equipment, already packed on to his horse’s back.
‘The Batavians are supposed to have swum across rivers like this and even wider alongside their horses in full armour, back in the days when the divine Julius conquered the south of this island, but I’m buggered if I can see how they managed it. There are those that think they might have used their shields for buoyancy, but there’s no bloody way I’d risk slipping off my board and sinking like a stone in mid-river. We’re doing it my way today, so go and have a look at my horse and see how I’ve got my armour laid across the saddle, and with my sword on top. Look at the way I’ve secured them with my rope, and used it to tie my spear and shield to the beast’s side. Then take a length of rope and do the same yourselves, and I’ll come round and see how good a job you’ve done. And make sure your spear isn’t going to stab your horse in the eye if the poor sod turns his head to find out what the fuck you think you’re doing, eh?’
He strolled around the horses, providing help to those men to whom the act of tying their equipment to their mount was proving difficult, eventually expressing his satisfaction with their preparations. Pulling off his tunic, he folded it neatly and slipped it under the rope holding his armour in place, then did the same with his blanket and boots. Standing naked in the cold morning air, he smiled wryly at the men around him.
‘Well then, let’s have you stripped down to your skins and ready to swim. And don’t bother making the usual tired excuses about how cold it is.’
The soldiers stripped with the usual bathhouse ribaldry, albeit muted both by their circumstances and the admonishments of their decurion.
‘Right, here we go. Stand by your animal’s head and take a good firm grip of the reins. Walk the beast in and start swimming, and they will follow you. They might not enjoy it all that much, but every horse here knows how to swim. Just keep your arms and legs well clear of theirs, because there’s only one of you that will win if you get tangled and it isn’t going to be any of you girls. When you get to the far side keep your fucking voices down, and we’ll have no squealing or shouting out how cold it is when you get in, you’ll soon warm up with the effort of the swim. On the far bank get your sword drawn before you worry about getting dry and keep a tight grip on your horse once you’ve got your feet back on dry land, because some of them are going to be more than a bit pissed off at being made to do this. Now follow me…’
He strode forward into the river, walking into the chilly water without hesitation, and sliding his body into the horizontal position almost noiselessly, breaststroking out into the stream with his horse swimming alongside him happily enough. Marcus waded in behind him, and was surprised to find the animal’s flanks shivering as he put his hoofs into the water. The big grey tugged against his reins without any real force, but strongly enough to indicate his discomfort. Pulling at the reins with a gentle insistence, Marcus led the animal into the deeper water, breathing in sharply as the cold water reached his groin, then pushed himself forward into the water and started swimming for the far bank, still lost in the mist. The horse surrendered to its rider’s unspoken command and started swimming, surging up out of the water and then easing back into it alternately in a porpoising motion, his eyes rolling and his teeth bared at the unfamiliar sensation. Finding that the horse was starting to outpace him, Marcus waited for one of the animal’s plunges back into the water and slipped a leg over his back, thanking providence that he had tied his spear and shield to the other flank. If the extra weight troubled the horse there was no sign, and freed of the need to keep pace with his rider, he forged through the water faster than before, passing Silus’s mount in less than a minute. The river’s northern bank loomed out of the fog more quickly than Marcus had expected, and getting a glimpse of dry land was enough to spur the animal to one last great effort. Horse and rider staggered ashore untidily, and Marcus slipped from his mount’s back with his gladius drawn and ready to fight, despite the shivers racking his body with reexposure to the cold air. Silus staggered ashore behind him, his sword already drawn and his body blue. His voice stuttered with the cold air’s grip on his body, his lungs panting for breath.
‘S-s-see? N-n-nothing t-to it…’
Another horseman wearily climbed the bank behind him, and the decurion pointed to the left.
‘Ten paces that way, then dry off with your blanket and get your kit on. I want you ready to fight.’
Qadir waded out of the water next, the chestnut mare calm under his touch, and Silus raised a disgusted eyebrow.
‘There’s no justice. Not only the best horseman I’ve met in this whole bloody country, but his bloody manhood’s still dragging in the water.’
The Hamian shook his head and hooked a thumb over his shoulder.
‘If you want to be truly scared, take a look at that. Why do you think I was swimming so quickly?’
Both the officers looked past him, to see the impressive shape of Arminius as he waded out of the river. Silus shook his head slowly.
‘Gods below…’
The German smiled complacently as he walked past them, and Silus pointed out into the fog still wreathing the riverbank.
‘Get your sword out, bugger off into the mist and get that thing covered up.’
The squadron came ashore in ones and twos, until every man was accounted for and dry enough to put on their armour. The mist persisted, although it seemed to Marcus that it was thinning slightly as the sun climbed away from the eastern horizon, a slightly brighter spot in the grey. Silus cast a critical eye at the ascending spot of light, nodding decisively.
‘This lot will have burned off in an hour or so, so mount up and follow me. I want to be safe on the far side of the hill before it clears, and out of sight of anyone looking out for us.
They rode carefully across the grassy expanse, at one point scattering a flock of sheep that was grazing in their path. Marcus looked around for any sign of their herder, tightening a hand on the hilt of his sword even as he wondered whether he could kill an innocent to maintain the secrecy of their task, but the running sheep were swallowed by the mist without any sign of their keeper.
‘He’s probably still asleep.’
He looked around to find Qadir at his shoulder, the chestnut trotting easily with the last of the river’s moisture steaming off her body.
‘It’s his lucky day, then.’
The Hamian raised an eyebrow.
‘And you could have put an innocent sheep herder to the sword?’
The Roman shook his head indecisively.
‘I don’t know… but I suspect our new decurion could.’
Qadir nodded knowingly.
‘I think the word you’re looking for is “pragmatist”. And I suspect we’re all going to have to stretch our principles if we’re going to release the Votadini from their new rulers.’
Excingus woke Felicia with a gentle shake in the dawn’s first light, wrinkling his nose and pointing at the stream by which the small detachment was camped.
‘You smell, my dear, like a polecat. Come on, let’s get you into the water and make you bearable for the rest of the day.’
She shook her head, painfully aware of the knife still tied to her thigh and certain to be discovered if she were forced to disrobe in front of the guardsmen.
‘If you think I’m going to take my clothes off in front of these men…’
The legion soldier who Felicia had caught staring at her several times the previous day stood up from his place by the fire and ran his eyes up and down her body, the insolent smile playing across his lips in direct contradiction to his cold stare. Alongside him Rapax looked up from his breakfast and shook his head with a snort of amusement.
‘Steady, Maximus, recall what I said to you and you might still be breathing by sunset. As for you, madam, go and have a wash before I come over there and throw you into the water. My colleague isn’t going to give you any problems, he’s not that way inclined. You’ve got more chance of persuading a sausage to stand up than you have of getting a twitch out of his wrinkle stick.’
She glared at the praetorian for a moment before standing, feeling the knife’s hard length against her flesh and thinking quickly. Excingus led her up the riverbank, away from the small camp’s bustle and into the trees that lined the stream’s banks until they reached a small pool. He pointed impatiently at the water, clearly not willing to walk any farther.
‘Get your clothes off and wash here.’ Felicia submitted with a show of meekness, pulling off her stola, folding it up and putting it down on the grass, then removed her boots and turned to the waiting corn officer.
‘Centurion, please could you give me a little privacy? I’m un -happy enough given my circumstances, without having you stare at me like a slave in the market.’
Excingus shrugged, spreading his hands wide.
‘Didn’t you hear my colleague? I, madam, regard the prospect of your naked body with all the anticipation I would normally reserve for looking at that tree.’ He sighed, shaking his head slightly, then turned away, speaking to the foliage in front of him. ‘Very well, you have your modesty, for now at least, although you must realise that it will be cruelly torn away from you when the time comes? Rapax will protect you until then, to keep you unsullied until the right moment, but he’ll be quite merciless once your Aquila boy is within earshot. Speaking of your boyfriend, I’d be curious to know how the two of you ended up together. Weren’t you the wife of a senior officer?’
Felicia worked quickly as she replied, keeping her voice level to avoid exciting his suspicions.
‘If you want to know about my former husband, the story’s quite simple. He was a brutal man, and no stranger to the idea of rape when he felt like it. He used to say it was just “spicing things up”.’ She unstrapped the knife from her thigh and dropped it into one of her boots before pulling off her tunic and stepping into the pool, gasping at the water’s cold. ‘He used to tell me he knew I enjoyed it once he had me helpless on my back, or pinned face down across a table with a handful of my hair to keep me there. He was a monster, pure and simple.’ She climbed out of the water and dressed quickly, strapping the sheath back around her thigh beneath her tunic’s thick wool. ‘He didn’t restrict his outrages to me, to judge from the little I heard about his behaviour towards the men who served under him. He was killed by one of them on the battlefield a few months ago, and I expect it was no more than he deserved.’ Pulling on her stola as the centurion turned back to face her, she smiled wanly and nodded her thanks. The corn officer’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully as he digested the fact that her husband was dead.
‘Was he a wealthy man?’
Felicia shrugged dismissively, adjusting her clothes.
‘He had a modest estate in Rome, I believe.’
‘And you’re not interested in how you might benefit?’
She shook her head, her hands spreading in a dismissive gesture.
‘I have no entitlement, you know that well enough. And I don’t want to touch anything of his ever again.’
‘But the money…’
‘I want nothing from him. I have all I want for this life.’
‘And when we’ve killed young Aquila? What will you have then? Surely you’d be better off returning to Rome and taking your husband’s property than staying here in poverty? I could help you, for a consideration.’
She turned hard eyes on him, understanding for the first time the depth of his cynicism.
‘I’m sure you could. You could strong-arm my husband’s family from their home, or worse, and then install me there as your creature, forever on your hook as the woman that consorted with a traitor, just a betrayal away from disgrace and even execution. But you’re forgetting one thing, Centurion, in all your schemes of another man’s money.’
Excingus smiled wryly back into her anger.
‘And that would be what, exactly?’
She straightened her back, holding the stare with which she had him fixed.
‘You haven’t found Marcus yet, and you haven’t faced him with swords in his hands. Be careful what you wish for, Centurion, because you might not like what happens when you get it.’
*
Dubnus stretched his stiff body, cursing the suspicion that had driven him to pad his bedroll with clothes until it looked to the casual eye like a sleeping man, preparation for a vigil that had stretched through the night with his sword drawn for the attack he felt would be inevitable now that the half-century had seen his wounds. With his endurance stretched to the point of exhaustion, and his body craving sleep more than at any time he could recall, he had stayed ready to kill the first man through the tent’s flap if there were any sign that foul play was planned. Now, with the dawn’s onset, his eyelids were red-rimmed slits in a face grey with fatigue. He’d heard the soldiers talking into the late evening until the authoritative tones of their watch officer had sent them to their blankets and silence had fallen, and suspected that their talk had mainly been a discussion of just how vulnerable their new centurion suddenly seemed. And yet no attack had materialised, making his night-long vigil seem an act of folly given the temptation to surrender to sleep. He closed his eyes and saw Marcus’s face, willing himself to be strong for his friend and the woman to whom he would soon be married and remembering why he’d taken such a risk in coming north before his wound was fully healed.
The tent flap flicked open, light flooding the small space’s interior, and the dozing centurion snapped awake, cursing his weakness even as he tried to work out how long he might have slept. Lifting the sword’s point to strike, his stared bleary eyed at the doorway, waiting for the first of them to come through and die on his blade. A figure darkened the tent’s interior as it blocked out the light, and Dubnus’s poised sword-hand drew back six inches as the exhausted centurion prepared for the lunge that would put his gladius clean through the other man’s guts and out of his back.
‘Centurion?’
The sword stopped a hand-span from Titus’s defenceless stomach, and Dubnus closed his eyes and blew out a compressed breath at the thought of how close he’d come to killing his subordinate. The other man stepped into the tent, brushing aside the weapon and staring wide eyed at him.
‘I came to invite you to speak with the men. They’ve been talking
…’
Dubnus smiled weakly.
‘I heard them…’
The watch officer shook his head in amazement.
‘And you assumed that since they’d seen your wound it would only be a matter of time before they decided to do away with you in the night. So you sat up all night waiting for them with a drawn sword? No disrespect, Centurion, but you need to get your head straight. My lads have spent half the night telling each other how big your balls are while you’ve been sat here sweating like a legionary’s foreskin on payday. I suggest that you take a moment to get into the right frame of mind to listen to what they have to say without taking your iron to the first man that opens his mouth… sir. Come on, I’ll help you get into your armour.’
An abashed Dubnus stepped out of his tent a few minutes later and walked slowly across to face the forty men standing waiting for him. Titus snapped out the order, and the detachment stood to attention with a precision that raised his eyebrows. He turned to the watch officer and gestured with an open hand for him to say his piece.
‘Centurion, the soldiers of this detachment have given consideration to the things that you’ve said to us since taking command. We couldn’t fail to notice that you’ve matched us stride for stride with a hole in your side barely healed over. You’ve made us consider how we want to be regarded by our brother soldiers, since you’ve left us in no doubt as to how we’re seen at the moment. We don’t consider ourselves to be cowards, but we can see how our actions on the road to Sailors’ Town make us look like exactly that. So the men have decided to take you at your word, and to put everything we can into proving that we can fight like men and regain our reputation.’
He shut his mouth and stood in silence, waiting for the centurion to react to his men’s declaration of intent, but before Dubnus could make any response a soldier in the front rank stepped smartly forward, stamped to attention and then spoke out, his face reddening as he plunged into what was evidently a rare public display.
‘We want to prove that we mean what the watch officer’s said to you, Centurion. We can all see that you’re a fighting man, out in the field again, and you with a wound not right yet, and it makes us feel ashamed of what we’ve come to. We want to take a detachment name, something that means something to all of us and reminds us of our promise to do better every time you give us an order.’
Dubnus nodded, resisting the temptation to smile at the man’s blushing discomfort.
‘And that name would be?’
‘Habitus, Centurion. We’d like to use the old centurion’s name to make us strong again, and to remind us what we’re promising you.’
Dubnus smiled gently, but in respect of the sentiment rather than the manner of its delivery.
‘Detachment Habitus? The old boy would probably be proud to have his name used for inspiration like that. You realise that you risk tarnishing his honour if you go looking for a fight and then fail to stand firm when you find it? Wherever he is now, you can’t risk bringing shame to his name by doing this thing lightly.’ He looked across the ranks with his eyes suddenly hard with conviction. ‘I won’t accept any man running from battle if you go through with the idea, in fact I’ll be behind you waiting to cut down any man that runs in the face of the enemy.’
The soldier looked at Titus, and the watch officer stepped forward to speak again.
‘We understand that, Centurion. You can kill any man that runs from a fight while we serve under Centurion Habitus’s name, we’re all agreed on that.’
Dubnus shrugged, turning away to his tent to hide the twitching of his mouth that was threatening to break into a smile.
‘Very well, in that case we’d best be putting some more miles under our feet. We’re not going to find you a fight sitting on our arses here. Get these tents struck and your boots on the road, Detachment Habitus.’
*
Drust watched with satisfaction as the last of the cavalry cohort that had pursued his men north crested the ridge to the fort’s west and vanished from view.
‘A sensible decision by their tribune, I’d say. No point sitting here and watching us scratch our arses for the next few days, eh, Calgus? We’ll wait here for a few hours just to be sure, then head north and find this detachment the captive told us all about.’ Turning to discover the source of the Selgovae chief’s silence, he found the other man’s face sombre. What’s the matter? I would have thought you’d be pleased to see the back of them. You can strike out for your homelands now, or stay with us if you will, but either way their threat is lifted.’
Calgus pursed his lips, shaking his head slightly.
It’s all a bit too easy, Drust, too easy by a long way. I know that tribune of old, and he’s not the type to turn his back and walk away that quickly. There’ll be men left behind them, you can be sure of that, watching and waiting to signal to the rest of them that we’re on the move.’
Drust shook his head, laughing softly at the other man’s caution.
‘Nobody could ever accuse you of underestimating your enemy, Calgus – apart from allowing them to break into your camp and slaughter your army, that is. Once burned, forever cautious, eh? Well, just to make you happy I’ll send a scouting party out to make sure they’ve really all left. Five hundred men ought to be able to clean the landscape of any watchers they’ve left behind.’
The volunteer squadron took a late breakfast once they had reached the southern face of the hills beyond the River Tuidius, each rider feeding his mount with oats from the sack tied to his saddle before sitting down to eat his own meal of dried meat and hard cheese, leaving the horses to crop the grass where they were hobbled. The hills to the north loomed above the group, their scree-littered upper slopes glittering with dew in the sun’s pale morning light. Silus ate on his feet, staring hard to the east and chewing vigorously on a chunk of pork. Marcus stood and walked across to him.
‘What next, Decurion? Up and over the hills?’
He waited patiently while the other man chewed hard for a moment and then swallowed with a grimace, washing the tough wad of meat down with a slug of water from his water skin, waving a hand at the hills to the north.
‘Over that lot? Not likely, they’re a death trap to cavalry, littered with small stones that will break a horse’s leg, or make it fall and throw the rider, and the slopes are steeper than they look from here. No, I think we’ll just take a gentle trot along the line of these foothills towards the coast in an extended line, and see what we can scare out of the landscape. Not that I expect to find anyone this far from the ford. We’ll cross the hills in a few miles, when they’re a bit less risky, and aim to meet the road, such as it is, about five miles north of the ford. If my guess is correct, that will put us well to the north of any scouts hiding to watch the crossing, and in the best possible position to intercept them when they make a run back to the fortress.’ He turned to face the men sat eating on the hill’s gentle slope. ‘Get your nosebag down you and get back on your feet, we’ve a nice long ride ahead of us.’
The praetorians were still eating their breakfast at the roadside when a pair of message riders clattered down the road from the north, reining in their horses as Rapax stepped on to the hard surface and flagged them down, both men throwing crisp salutes to the centurion as they dismounted. The battle-scarred officer returned them with a swift gesture, waving a hand at the fire.
‘I’m Rapax, centurion of the Fourth Cohort Praetorian Guard, and these are my men. We’re marching north in pursuit of a fugitive from imperial justice and hoping for news of events that might lead us to him. Come and join us for a short time, and share what you know with us. We’ll do our best to repay you with whatever we have left over from our meal.’
The pair nodded their thanks to the soldiers as they shuffled round to make a space for them to squat in the fire’s warmth, one of them glancing with a horseman’s interest at the mounts tied to trees around the clearing. Rapax handed them a piece of bread apiece, warm from the fire’s edge.
‘You bear news from the north?’
The more senior of the two nodded, his mouth full of bread, speaking in staccato sentences as he ate.
‘We defeated the rebels four days ago, Centurion, broke into their camp and massacred the Selgovae, but the Venicones got away, thousands of them, and we’ve been hunting them ever since. They took refuge in Three Mountains…’ The lack of comprehension on the centurion’s face took him aback for a moment. ‘Ah, it’s a large fortress about fifteen miles to the north, abandoned and burned out when the barbarians came south. They captured one of our officers and tortured something out of him. We don’t really know what, but we’ve pulled back to get them to leave the fort. Our tribune thinks they might be moving to attack one of the auxiliary cohorts for some reason.’
Excingus glanced across the fire at him, a look of mild curiosity on his face.
‘An auxiliary cohort? I’ve got a cousin serving with one of the cohorts that defends the Wall. Begins with a “t”, from memory…’
‘Tungrians? That’s the cohort they seem to have gone after.’
The corn officer wrinkled his forehead in apparent concentration.
‘Tungrians… no, that’s not it. Perhaps it was a “v”. Anyway, you’re riding south to take the news to the governor, I’d imagine?’
The double-pay man nodded sagely, while his silent companion put a hand to his belt in an apparent search for some item or other.
‘Yes, we’ll be at Noisy Valley before dark, and briefing message riders to take the word to wherever the governor is. Eight thousand barbarian warriors at Three Mountains and expected to head north soon, possibly heading to intercept the Tungrian detachment sent to free the Dinpaladyr.’
His colleague shook his head in exasperation, evidently unable to find whatever it was he was searching for, and stood with an apologetic shrug at the man next to him.
‘It’ll be in my saddlebag. Won’t be a moment.’
Excingus’s eyes narrowed.
‘The Dinpaladyr?’
The seated horseman hurried to explain the term.
‘Local tongue, sir. It translates as the Fortress of a Thousand Spears, or something close to it.’ Excingus raised an eyebrow. ‘It’s the capital of the Votadini tribe, Centurion. The Tungrians and a few of our lads have been sent north to free it from the last of the Selgovae, though why the Venicones should want to stick their nose in is beyond…’
Rapax rammed his dagger up through the cavalryman’s throat, springing up from his squatting position and reaching to his belt for another blade as the second rider ran the last few paces to his horse and leapt astride it, jabbing his booted heels into its sides. Pulling his arm back and holding the thin sliver of iron by the side of his head for a split second, he flicked the knife forward with a fluid jerk that sent it across the clearing in a split-second flash of polished metal to strike the fleeing horseman in the back of the neck. He teetered for a moment, stunned by the sudden, intense pain, but managed to keep his seat as his mount clattered away down the road, lost to view in seconds. Rapax shook his head, staring after the wounded man for a moment before turning back to his stunned soldiers.
‘You can bring her out now!’
Excingus stood, the shock of the cavalryman’s death starting to wear off but with his face furrowed with incomprehension.
‘One moment I’m having a perfectly civilised conversation with a man who clearly has no idea of our little secret, and the next thing I know I’m watching you butcher the poor bastard and hurl the cutlery around as if you’ve got something to prove. Might I enquire quite what’s got into you?’
Rapax pulled his dagger from the dead man’s throat, wiping the blade on the sleeve of his tunic.
‘Your man here was clueless all right, but his mate had worked out what was going on. All that playacting about looking for something that just happened to be in his saddlebag? That was just a pretext to let him get back to his horse without alarming us. I only realised it when he took one last look at the horses, and at one horse in particular. Hers.’ He pointed to Felicia as she emerged from the trees with a guardsman at her back. I saw him do it as they walked to the fire and thought nothing of it, just a horseman taking a natural interest in our animals, but as he walked back to his horse he did it again. He gave her horse a good hard stare, and he wasn’t walking like a man who was going to open his saddlebag and dig something out of it, he was winding himself up to jump on the horse and leave his mate here to face the music.’
Excingus’s face creased as he considered the situation.
‘If you’re right then he must have recognised the doctor’s horse, and put two and two together. In which case, we have a problem.’
The praetorian shook his head dismissively.
‘Not really. I put that throwing knife clean through the back of his neck, so I’d guess he’ll be dead from loss of blood before he’s ridden five miles. There isn’t another unit on the road all the way back to Noisy Valley, not with all the fun and games happening south of the Wall. No, I think our secret will be safe enough, once he bleeds out and dies by the side of the road. And now, given what we’ve just learned, perhaps we should consider how to find this “fortress of spears” our dead friend here was so eager to tell us about.’
Excingus nodded.
‘It’s probably safe to assume that this road north will eventually lead us to the Three Mountains fortress. Perhaps once we’re there we’ll find something to help us…’
Dubnus took the men of his detachment up the north road at the double march, a pace calculated to get thirty miles under a soldier’s boots in a marching day while driving him to, but never beyond, the point of exhaustion. He’d explained the need for more speed to them as they strapped on their equipment, unburdening himself as to the purpose of their mission north of the Wall.
‘A good friend of mine, an officer falsely accused of treason, is serving with my cohort somewhere out here. They’re probably tracking down the last of the Selgovae, now that their warband’s been scattered. His woman was the doctor in the Noisy Valley hospital, until a pair of Roman centurions took her prisoner and carried her away north of the Wall. They plan to use her as bait to draw him in, I’d imagine, put him to the sword and then finish her off at their leisure. And that, since I owe my friend my crest and vine stick, is not going to happen if I have anything to do with the matter.’
The watch officer had spoken quietly to him while the detachment were forming ranks for the day’s march and putting their tents on to the ox cart that would follow along behind them, a look of disbelief on his bruised face.
‘So you have no idea where these Romans may have taken your fellow officer’s woman? They could be anywhere within a hundred miles of here.’
He’d nodded grimly, tightening his belt.
‘Yes, but you’re missing something. They’re from Rome. They’ll have no more idea of where to look for my friend Marcus than we do, and all they can do is follow the road north and look for information as to his whereabouts. And when they get that information, so will we. We’ll march at the double today, it’ll be good training for your lads and make sure that we lose as little ground to them as possible, given that they’re riding and we’re using boot leather. Now get your boys moving, we’ve a long way to go and no time to waste talking about it.’
The previous day’s fifteen miles had hurt more than he’d have cared to admit, both from his lack of exercise over the previous weeks and the effects of prolonged double marching on the freshly healed wound, which tugged and dragged with every step, but Dubnus knew that to show any sign of weakness would only undermine the new resolve that his men had displayed that morning. Driving them on through his example, he pushed himself through first the discomfort and then, as the pace started to sink its claws into his stomach and lungs, the pain of the march, sweat running down his back beneath his armour to soak his tunic. Over an hour into the march, and reaching deep into his reserves of endurance, waiting for the agony searing his chest to abate as his long-delayed second wind took effect, he snapped his head up as a familiar sound reached his ears.
‘Cover! Quickly, and keep your wits about you.’
The detachment scattered for the verge, pulling on their helmets and throwing their pack poles into the trees as they readied themselves to fight, their faces set in determination not to be found wanting a second time. Dubnus waited on the edge of the forest with his sword drawn, grimacing at the realisation that the detachment were alone in the heartlands of an enemy who, recently defeated or not, could still leave his men dead and dying with only a fraction of the strength still available to them. The sound of hoof beats strengthened over the space of a few moments, until to his relief a single horseman trotted over the road’s brow. The rider’s cavalry uniform gave him an instant of satisfaction, until he realised that the man was half out of his saddle and sagging precariously, on the brink of falling to the road’s hard surface. He stepped into the road, gesturing his men forward to intercept the slowing horse and ease the semi-conscious cavalryman to the ground. Eyes slitted, and breathing stertorously, the rider was pulled carefully from his saddle, his head lolling back to reveal a blood-caked sliver of metal protruding from his throat. The soldier helping him ease the rider’s weight to the ground goggled at the wound.
‘Fuck me, he’s been shivved!’
Dubnus turned the semi-conscious man on to his side, pain forgotten as he assessed the magnitude of the wound inflicted by a thin knife buried in his neck from back to front.
‘It’s a throwing knife. This man was running from something – or someone – when whoever it was put this into him with enough accuracy to very nearly kill him on the spot. A fraction to the right and he’d have dropped dead within a dozen paces. And as it is…’
He didn’t finish the sentence, eyes narrowing as the rider’s eyes opened and found his own, the man’s hand clutching convulsively at his arm with surprising strength. He spoke, his voice no more than a whisper.
‘Praetorian… killed us both.’
Dubnus bent close to his ear, speaking quietly but clearly to the dying man.
‘A praetorian officer and a tent party of guardsmen?’
The rider nodded with painful slowness, the metal blade bisecting his neck making the effort horribly painful, and a fresh rivulet of blood spilled down the curve of his throat.
‘Saw her horse… know it anywhere.’
‘Her horse? The doctor’s horse?’
The rider nodded again, a little more weakly this time, as more of his blood spilled on to the grass beneath him.
‘Message for governor… Venicones going north… Licinius says to Din… Dinpal…’
‘Dinpaladyr.’
The certainty in Dubnus’s voice closed the dying man’s eyes in what seemed a combination of relief and exhaustion, a long slow breath draining out of him with no more power behind it than was sufficient to maintain the processes of his life. With his eyes closed he spoke again, his voice now softer than before as he grasped at the last of his body’s fast-ebbing strength.
‘On my belt… purse… for my woman…’
Dubnus bent close to the dying rider’s face, a note of urgency coming into his voice as he sensed the man’s spirit slipping between his fingers.
‘And I’ll pay the ferryman for you. But which woman? And where?!’
The words were so quiet as to be nearly inaudible, the rider’s last breath easing them into the still morning air as little more than the noise made by his lips as he uttered them.
‘Waterside… Clodia…’
He lay still, and Dubnus bent close to listen for any more breath, at length getting back on to his feet and shaking his head decisively.
‘He’s gone. Dig that purse out, and let’s see if he has a small coin for the ferryman. The rest goes into my pack, and we’ll go and find his woman when this is all over and done with. And quickly now, that wound will have killed him before he’d ridden far from the scene of the attack, which means that we’re closer to them than I could have hoped.’
He stared up the road’s long grey ribbon, the earlier agony of the forced march forgotten as he calculated how far ahead of the detachment Felicia’s abductors might be. His voice, when he turned to face his men, was harsh with purpose.
‘Form ranks for the march! We’re going to catch up with this man’s murderer and show him and his men what happens when they kidnap the wrong person.’
The watch officer squinted at him from his place alongside the detachment’s ranks.
‘And if they’ve already found your man and killed him? What if this doctor’s already dead?’
Dubnus spat noisily on the verge’s damp grass.
‘Well then, Watch Officer Titus, we’ll spend a suitable amount of time making every one of them that lives regret his part in the matter.’ He turned north, waving his hand forward in command. ‘Any man that falls out of the line today gets left behind to live or die alone, so we’ll have no thoughts of slacking. March!’
The morning sun was less than halfway to its zenith when the Selgovae watchers, waiting in the hills to the north of the Tuidius’s last fording point before the river reached the sea, saw the first sign that the expected Roman advance had arrived. They had been waiting three days when the first of the Roman cohorts that they had been set to watch for marched down to the river’s edge, and both men were dirty and tired.
‘Time for us to run, right, Iudicael?’
The chief scout, a man chosen by the leader of the men occupying the Dinpaladyr for his steadiness under any circumstances, simply shook his head and kept watching as the leading cohort splashed into the river’s shallow water, the soldiers driven forward by the inaudible shouts and curses of their officers as they hurried to form an initial defence of the ford’s northern bank.
‘These are Romans. They do everything according to their rules. They won’t be moving any farther north than they have to until they’ve got every last man across the river.’ He looked up at the sky. ‘I’ll wager you gold to horse shit they’ll not be ready to move on until well after the middle of the day. No, there’s no rush for us to run for the fortress. Besides, how often is it that you get the chance to watch the idiots playing their soldier games?’
His companion grunted a reluctant agreement, settling back into the grass to watch the Roman advance guard running to take up their defensive positions around the ford.
‘Why do they take such precautions when there’s no enemy to be seen for miles?’
Iudicael shook his head, a wry smile on his face.
‘They have a way of doing everything that is agreed, and written down, and practised, and nothing will tempt them to break these rules, not even simple common sense. Not only will they form a defence on the northern bank for the rest of their men to cross behind, but they’ll defend the southern bank against attack from the rear too. They are creatures of habit, and for that we can be grateful.’
The Venicone warriors chosen to scour the ground around the Three Mountains fortress were more than a little reluctant to carry out such a menial task, until Drust announced a handsome sum in gold for any man that delivered a Roman spy to him, and double that sum if the captive were still capable of talking. Suddenly enthused to their task, and persuaded by their king that the Romans must have set at least one man to watch them for any sign of movement, the tribesmen scattered in all directions across the hills surrounding the camp, probing with their swords and spears into any vegetation or feature that looked capable of concealing even the most improbably small of Romans, but without any satisfactory result. After several hours of increasingly dispirited searching the majority of them had given it up as a bad job, and trudged back into the ruined fort’s walls with their dreams of fortune shattered. King Drust watched his men return from their fruitless hunt with a slight smile.
‘And there you are, Calgus, it seems as if your caution, praiseworthy though it was, has overestimated our enemies on this occasion. It seems that the Romans have made a complete exit and surrendered the ground to us. That silver-haired tribune was probably under orders to get his men south and start carving up the Brigantes. I must confess that I cannot avoid the humour in their having risen to the fight just a week too late to have been any use to your dreams of conquest…’
His careless insult left the Selgovae leader untroubled, since in truth Calgus was not listening to the words directed at him. Staring out to the west, he was wondering exactly how the Roman spies that he was sure would have been left to keep watch on the Venicone warband had evaded discovery.
Scaurus and Laenas stood on the slope of a low hill and watched as the legionaries of the first cohort crossed the ford, the distant sound of shouting reaching the two men as the cohort’s centurions roared out their orders and chivvied their men to carry them out with more speed. Martos stood to one side, just out of earshot, his face set hard while he watched the detachment’s men crossing the Tuidius. Laenas rubbed his chin, staring down from their vantage point as his men fanned out to their defensive positions, quickly building a wall of shields and spears against any potential attacker.
‘I’m somewhat surprised that there’s no opposition, Rutilius Scaurus. Given that you think they’ll have a good idea that we’re coming, wouldn’t you think that the barbarians would have been better advised to attack us here, while we’re split on two sides of the river?’
Scaurus shook his head, waving a hand at the crossing.
‘If they’d been waiting for us it would be far more in keeping for them to have been actually lined up on the riverbank waving their spears and daring us to cross. Besides that, I don’t think there will be enough of them to mount a defence of the river, not against our numbers. Whoever’s leading them probably has no more than four to five hundred tribesmen with him, and the Votadini won’t be cooperating with them, not given the murder of their king. The men Calgus sent to take control were probably as nice as you like until they were inside the fortress, but after that I’d imagine that things have been rather ugly for Martos’s people. Not to mention his family. Have you ever seen the Dinpaladyr?’
The other man shook his head, shooting a surprised glance at his colleague.
‘I’ve not been north of the Wall in all the time I’ve served here. Have you?’
Scaurus smiled, taking a deep breath of the cool autumn air before replying.
‘Oh yes, I’ve been all over this ground. I was tasked to scout the tribes to the north of the Brigantes’ territory before this revolt ever started, to have a good look at them and report back as to how they would react if Calgus called for war against us. He wasn’t exactly an unknown threat, despite the fact that the speed of his attack took the last governor somewhat by surprise.’
‘You came this far north in the teeth of a civil war? With how many men?’
‘Just one. My bodyguard Arminius was more than enough protection against the risk of an attempted robbery, and two men on horseback have a far better chance of fading into the landscape than a squadron.’
Laenas looked at him with a new respect.
‘And your conclusions?’
Scaurus shrugged.
‘Nothing that wasn’t expected. The Selgovae were burning to go to war, the Carvetii would follow them on principle, and it was a coin-toss as to whether the Votadini would be willing to abandon their favoured trading status with the empire and align themselves with Calgus. Just how disastrous that decision turned out to be is borne out by their current predicament. During my scouting I made a point of getting a look around their main fortress, just in case we might find ourselves on the outside and in need of getting inside.’
‘And…?’
‘It’s impressive enough, built on a huge plug of rock that rises out of the ground like a sleeping dog’s back, almost sheer on one side and still sloping steeply enough on the other that even the only possible route of attack would be an uphill battle all the way. The Votadini have ringed the hilltop with a palisade of mature tree trunks, thousands of them, so that from a distance it looks like a fence of spears. Their name for it translates as “the fortress of a thousand spear shafts”, and if it’s defended by men who know what they’re doing I’d say it’s pretty much impregnable unless an attacker can bring artillery to bear on it. And even then…’
‘Could it be burned out?’
‘With a big enough catapult to get a missile over a wall that high, and with a good supply of oil to set light to the buildings behind it, yes. Neither of which we have in our possession, of course. Short of that, the only way into that fortress is going to be something that we’ve never lacked as a people, those Roman strengths that the empire was built upon. This is going to come down to a combination of old-fashioned guile and ruthlessness.’
The scouts waited until the sun was almost at its zenith before moving. On the river’s grassy plain below them the last Roman troops were marching into the ford from the river’s southern bank, and the soldiers on the northern bank were forming up for the remainder of the day’s march, Iudicael nodded decisively.
‘Let’s be away now. They’ll be moving soon enough. Keep flat until we’re over the top of the hill and the risk of being spotted is gone, and then we ride for the fortress.’
His comrade nodded, and the two men squirmed away from their hiding place over the flat hill’s summit, confident that their movement would go unnoticed given the organised chaos on the plain below. Once over the hilltop they stood, hurrying down the slope to where their horses were tethered by a small lake. Momentarily relaxing with the release of pressure once they were out of sight of the cohorts camped on the hill’s far side, they were brought up short by the sudden realisation that their horses were missing from the trees to which they had been tethered. Before either of them could react to the loss, a man rose from the grass to their left and called a warning to them in their own language, his accent rough but understandable.
‘I only need one of you alive, and there are men all around you. Surrender to us now or one of you will die quickly, the other slowly. Surrender to us now, and I guarantee you your lives.’
The older of the two froze, looking about him for the speaker, but the younger tribesman bolted without a second thought, running hard towards the lake. An arrow whistled through the warm air and dropped him into the hillside’s long grass with his legs still kicking out his death throes, and Iudicael raised both hands, watching with resignation as the hillside’s long grass around him came alive with armed men. The soldiers spread out quickly, their weapons facing outwards in defence, while three of them walked past his comrade’s still-twitching body without breaking step. Their uniforms put paid to any last hope he’d had of the ambush being a mistake, and the small group’s leader gave him a dismissive look.
‘Tie his hands and put him on his horse. I want this man in front of the tribune as quickly as possible.’ He turned back to Iudicael with a hard-faced stare. ‘And you’d best make your mind up before we get there. With your mate dead you’re the only source of information we’ve got as to what’s happening inside the fortress of spears, and we’re going to squeeze everything you know out of you in the next few hours. That can either happen in a nice, quiet and calm way, or it can take a lot of shouting and screaming, most of it being done by you, but the end result’s going to be just the same. Me, I’d prefer it if we just had a nice chat and you told us what you know without any nastiness. I’ve heard enough of your lot screaming their lungs out in agony for one year, but only you can decide how it’s going to be, and once we get into camp you’re going to be asked a lot of difficult questions by some men who are in too much of a hurry to worry about hurting your feelings. So start thinking.’
The volunteer squadron rode down the shallow hill up which the legion detachment were leading the way and presented themselves to the command group riding at the cohort’s rear. Silus jumped down from his horse with a smart salute to Scaurus and gestured to the surviving Selgovae scout with a flourish.
‘As promised, Tribune, here’s the last of the men sent to watch for our approach.’
Scaurus returned his salute, and turned his horse from the line of march before climbing down and walking across to look closely at the captive.
‘Well done, Decurion, you’ve allowed us to steal a march on the men holding the Votadini captive. Tribune Licinius will have to confirm your promotion, but I can’t see him arguing with my decision given this success. From this moment on you’re a decurion. Well done.’
Silus saluted again, then tipped his head to the prisoner.
‘Thank you, Tribune. What would you like me to do with this?’
Scaurus flicked an indifferent glance at Iudicael, who was sitting helplessly with his hands bound in front of him.
‘I’m not sure there’s much point in trying to get any information out of him. We know everything that we need to know about the Dinpaladyr, and anything he tells us about the Votadini holding it will likely be false. I think I’ll just give him to Martos for entertainment when we camp tonight. He never tires of the opportunity to send another Selgovae to Hades with his balls in his mouth.’
Silus nodded and saluted once more, turning to take the horse’s reins and lead it away.
‘Spare me, Lord, and I will tell you everything I know! I swear to tell you the truth, I swear to my gods Cocidius and Maponus not to deceive you!’
Scaurus met the tribesman’s imploring eyes with a cold stare, raising an eyebrow and snorting derision.
‘You weren’t listening, Selgovae. I already know everything I need to know about the Dinpaladyr. You’re of more value to me as an offering to the Votadini prince your master betrayed and left to die than for whatever stories you think you can fool me with.’
The captive bent over his bound hands in supplication.
‘I can tell you much that you cannot know, Lord. I can tell you who holds the fortress, how many warriors he commands, how much food they have…’
He fell silent as Scaurus stared hard into his eyes, then nodded to Silus.
‘We’ll have the prisoner down from his horse if you please, Decurion. And you, whatever your name is, the second I think you’re lying to me I’ll have you hamstrung and left to die here. I’m sure there are wolf packs roaming these hills that would appreciate the gift. You can start with the name of the man Calgus sent to take the fortress.’
The Venicones marched from the remains of the Three Mountains fort soon after noon with Drust and Calgus at their head. The Venicone king took a deep breath of the day’s cool air, watching as his scouts loped forward up the road to the north.
‘It’s good to be able to move without the bloody Romans dogging our steps. We’ll march to the north until we’re over these hills, then turn east and head for the Dinpaladyr. Let’s hope that your men are still in command of it.’
Calgus, marching alongside him in the chill morning air, laughed tersely.
‘They’ll still be there. I sent one of my more energetic men to take a firm grip of the Selgovae, and if I know him half as well as I think I do, he’ll be riding them harder than they’ve experienced for many a year. I’ve visited the fortress on more than one occasion, and I can assure you that without a legion’s catapults these Tungrians will still be camped out in front of those walls when we arrive, scratching their heads as to how they might get inside. Once your warriors have rolled over them and taken revenge for us both, I’ll gather my men from inside the fortress and take them west to our own hills.’
The Venicone king raised an eyebrow.
‘You’ll return to your land? Why would you risk going back to the very place that the Romans will be busy putting back under their boots even as we speak? If they catch you they’ll drag your guts out while you watch, and leave you for the crows. Your people will have a bitter winter ahead at the hands of the legions, and they may not be happy to protect you, given the size of your defeat. Why not come north with us, and spend the winter in the safety of the hills beyond the River Clut?’
Calgus walked in silence for a moment before replying.
‘It might be safer for me to take up your offer, but we both know that the legions won’t be off my people’s land any time soon. Their cohorts will return to the forts that stud the road north from their wall, and their detachments will roam our hills as they wish. My people will be forbidden to gather without hard-faced centurions watching their every move, ready to set their dogs on us again at the first excuse. My people will suffer under their yoke once more, and if I desert them in such a time of need I will be unable to face any of the men that accompany me with any sense of honour.’ He stretched, still stiff from his night’s sleep. ‘I must return to take up the fight for them, or the slaughter of so many good men in our uprising will be without meaning. And besides, we’ve been subject to their whims since before my grandfather was born, and we’ve always managed to make them pay a high price for the pleasure of treading our land, both in men and gold. There’s an unfinished war waiting for me in the west, so while I thank you for the offer of protection, I cannot accept it and remain my own man.’
Drust shrugged, his eyes bright with the pleasure of marching without the Roman cavalry’s constant threat.
‘The offer stands. You may feel differently when this last fight is over.’
On the hillside high above Three Mountains, Soldier Caius waited until the tribesmen were well clear of the fort, poking away a lump of turf from the front of his hide to afford himself a better view of the sunlit ground below him. Satisfied that the warband was on the march, he bent his back and scattered the turf roof as he stood up in a shower of dirt. Brushing soil from his armour he turned away from the empty fort and started to run, heading down the hill’s flank at an easy jog as he headed for the meeting point agreed the previous day. After an hour’s run he trotted breathlessly up to the waiting cavalrymen, taking a moment to get his breath and gulp from a water skin before climbing wearily on to his horse and turning south.
Tribune Licinius received his report with a curt nod, turning to his first spear once Caius had finished his brief account.
‘A note for the pay records, First Spear, Soldier Caius to be credited five hundred denarii for his retirement pension. As we agreed this morning, messengers are to be sent south with a report for the governor, and a full squadron is to be sent north immediately with orders to track the barbarians without being detected, and report back three times a day. We’ll follow up at a respectable distance and wait to see what develops, but there is to be no attempt to engage the Venicones without my direct orders. The next time Drust sees our dragon banner I want it to be across a battlefield.’
Detachment Habitus staggered on to the ruined fort’s parade ground on legs that seemed incapable of making another step. Half of Dubnus’s command were leaning on their spears rather than carrying them, and even their centurion was grey with exhaustion after the day’s exertion. Bellowing a command that restored some semblance of military order, he walked out in front of the soldiers with a tired but satisfied smile.
‘Didn’t think you could do that, did you? You’ve marched the best part of thirty miles today, and you’re still all on your feet and ready to fight…’ He paused to share a moment of dark humour with those men whose heads were still up. ‘Even if you do look like you’ve been beaten with hammers.’
He turned away and spread his arms wide to direct their attention to the burned-out shell of a fort that stood before them.
‘This, Detachment Habitus, is Yew Tree Fort. Earlier on today we passed the forts at Roaring River and Red River.
The soldiers had spared the first of the wrecked forts no more than a passing glance, too deep in the effort of their forced march to care what they were passing, although more than a few of them had given Red River’s burned-out shell a longing stare as they’d ground past it in the early afternoon, their hopes of camping there for the night dashed as their centurion’s pace had continued unchanged.
‘We are less than a day’s march from Three Mountains, which is where I expect the men that murdered those cavalry messengers will be camping tonight. You might all be dead on your feet, but you’ve kept in touch with the men we’re hunting, which is all that matters. Now get your tents up, light the watch fires and feed yourselves, then sort your feet out and get into your blankets. We march for Three Mountains at first light, and you’re going to need your wits about you.’
Titus followed Dubnus as he walked away from the organised chaos of tent erection and made his way to the stream that would eventually swell to become the Red River.
‘Centurion, do you really believe that we can catch a party of men on horseback? The men are shattered after today’s march, and we’ll be lucky to get as much as twenty miles out of them tomorrow.’
Dubnus turned away from the swift-flowing stream and nodded his agreement.
‘You’re right. I made a calculated gamble today, that something might slow down the men holding my friend’s woman and give us the chance to take them unawares. I’d hoped that they might have delayed long enough at their camp last night for that to happen, but my gamble failed.’
The detachment had come upon the praetorians’ campfire less than an hour after resuming their march, the embers still smoking gently and the other cavalryman’s corpse face down in the bloody grass beside it. Felicia’s captors had clearly mounted up and headed north without wasting the time required to give the murdered man any dignity in death, and neither had the detachment made anything but the briefest of stops to confirm that he was indeed dead. From grim necessity they had left his corpse where he had fallen, like that of the man who had ridden south from the scene of his comrade’s murder before succumbing to the knife wound in his throat, untended other than for a coin hastily slipped into his mouth. Dubnus grimaced his distaste at the day’s compromises.
‘It didn’t come any easier to me to leave those cavalrymen lying unburied than it did to you. We’re soldiers, and we’re taught from our first day never to leave a fallen comrade as carrion, but the needs of the living are greater than those of the dead in this case. And so tomorrow, Watch Officer Titus, and despite the fact that all of our legs will be as stiff as spears, we will climb from our sleep at dawn and head north again.’
‘Won’t these praetorians just ride on again tomorrow, and vanish into the hills?’
Dubnus turned to face him.
‘Which would leave us in the middle of enemy territory, forty men at the mercy of whoever comes by, and with no idea of what to do next?’ Titus remained silent, but Dubnus could see from the set of his face that his estimation of the watch officer’s concerns was accurate. He smiled gently. ‘More than likely. And yet to gain the possibility of catching these bastards and freeing my friend’s woman from her likely rape and murder, I would take that risk and many worse without a thought. That’s what it means to be a Tungrian. Now, go and get your men moving, they’re shuffling around as if they’re already asleep, and the quicker we put them into their blankets the better they’re going to feel when I root them out again at dawn. And when you’re done, join me for a while before we turn in. I’d like to hear the story of how you got those bruises.’
He was sitting next to the century’s cooking fire in his tunic by the time Titus had finished his rounds of the guards, and looked on as the watch officer pulled off his helmet and rubbed at his sweat-moistened hair. Standing with his back to the fire, luxuriating in its heat as the evening’s air turned cool, Titus looked down at his new centurion with a face made taut by the anger he was clearly still feeling.
‘You asked how I got these marks. The answer’s simple enough. I got jumped in the dark, soon after our fight with the Brigantes on the road to Sailors’ Town. My attacker hit me from behind, without any warning, and as a result he put me down with one punch. While I was down on my knees he then kicked me in the head good and hard a few times, just to be sure I wouldn’t be able to get up and give him any sort of fight. Then, when he knew that I wouldn’t be getting up again, and in the mistaken belief that I was already insensible, he bent over and said a few choice words to me. That was his mistake, because I might have been flat out with my head spinning, but I still had enough of my wits intact to recognise him. It was a soldier from my own century, a nasty piece of work called Maximus who I’d had call to discipline more than once. He took his chance to get some revenge that dark night, and less than an hour later walked into a bar fight that went wrong and put him in the fortress cells with a murder charge on his head. And that would have been fine with me, except that the men we’re chasing up this road turned up and took him with them as a replacement for a man they lost on the road to Noisy Valley.’
Dubnus leaned back, stretching his body to test the still-healing spear wound.
‘I see. So you have nearly as big an interest in catching these men as I do? That would explain your encouragement of their change of heart.’
Titus nodded, his face hard.
‘Yes, Centurion, I do. And I’ll drive these lads along just as hard as you will to get my chance at a rematch.’
The praetorians rode north from Three Mountains at daybreak the next morning, following the trail that the Venicones had stamped into the ground on either side of the rough trail that headed away from the ruined fortress to the north. Rapax sent a pair of riders north to scout ahead of them, with orders to ride back if they spotted any sign of movement, either Roman or barbarian. Soon after midday the outriders rode back towards their fellows at a swift canter, pointing back towards the north.
‘Cavalry coming this way, ours from the look of it. Half a dozen of them…’
Rapax sent Felicia away into the forest with a guardsman, and told his men to dismount and act in the manner of soldiers taking a brief rest from the saddle. When the riders came down the road towards them it was immediately clear that these were not messengers, but soldiers hunting for the enemy with their spears ready for use. Two barbarian warriors were roped to their horses, half running and half staggering along in their wake. Their leader reined his mount in alongside the guardsmen, surveying their unfamiliar uniforms with a jaundiced eye.
‘Greetings, whoever you are. We’re a detachment from the Petriana Wing, with orders to sweep the enemy’s trail for any stragglers, and capture them to use as an example to the Venicones before we fight them tomorrow. Have you seen any more of these scum in your day’s march?’
Rapax stepped forward, his face set equally hard.
‘Rapax, centurion, Praetorian Guard. No, we’ve seen none of these animals since we were ambushed on the road to Noisy Valley and lost two good men.’
They eyed each other for a moment before the cavalry officer spoke again, his voice a little less aggressive in the face of the praetorian’s truculence.
‘I’m under orders to sweep as far south as Three Mountains before turning back. We’ve only seen these two all the way from the road’s fork to north and east, so you’ll be safe to push on even if there aren’t enough of you to put up a fight against any more than a dozen of them. Perhaps you should wait here, and we’ll escort you north when we come back this way?’
The corn officer shook his head, stepping to Rapax’s side with a slight smile.
‘That won’t be necessary, thank you, Decurion. My escort will be perfectly sufficient for the task, given that you seem to have scoured the way ahead clean for us.’
The decurion’s eyes narrowed as he took in Excingus’s white tunic and blue cloak.
‘Yes, well, in that case we’ll be away and…’
The corn officer raised his hand to forestall their departure.
‘You mentioned a fork to the east? How far would that be?’
‘About five miles, Centurion.’
‘And from there to the “fortress of the spears”?’
The decurion shook his head grimly.
‘Another thirty or so, but I’d not recommend that you try to ride any farther east than the edge of the forest, once you reach it. You’ll still be a good twenty miles from the hillfort, but there’s a big angry warband sat between there and where you’re trying to go. You’d be best setting up camp far enough into the trees that you can’t be seen, and waiting to see what happens when we bring them to battle, tomorrow or more likely the day after. Either we’ll clear them away or we’ll lose, in which case you’ll be better off heading back to the south.’
Excingus nodded his thanks and turned to Rapax, but turned back when the horseman spoke again.
‘Centurion?’
The corn officer raised an eyebrow, waiting for the inevitable question.
‘Might I ask what’s so important that you’re willing to risk the frontier zone with only a few soldiers to protect you? If it’s none of my business you can tell me to keep my nose out, but I…’
Excingus raised a hand to forestall the decurion’s apology.
‘No problem at all, Decurion – indeed, you might even be able to help us. Just like you, we’re hunting for an enemy of Rome. The only difference between us is that you’re hunting barbarians, but our quarry is a Roman.’
‘We need to move faster, Titus. Every hour we march at this pace sees them another five miles ahead of us.’
The watch officer met his centurion’s scowl with a nod of understanding, but his face was set in a troubled frown, his voice pitched equally low to avoid it carrying to the men marching a dozen paces behind them.
‘Agreed. But look at the state they’re in. Even you look fit to drop, Centurion, and you’re the hardest man here by some distance. After yesterday, some of these men are just managing to hang on at this pace. Push them to the double and we’ll break them in short order. I say we just keep them moving, and aim to get to Three Mountains with the century still in ranks and marching.’
The centurion nodded reluctantly.
‘I know. But I can feel them slipping away from me.’
He kept a brooding silence as the century struggled north, and his mood was little improved by the sight of Three Mountains as the fortress came into view in the mid-afternoon. The detachment staggered down the road’s long slope towards the burned-out walls, their pace increasing as they realised that the ruined defences represented a chance to end their interminable march. The leading rank was still two hundred paces from the wrecked west gate when a flurry of activity caught Dubnus’s eye.
‘Horsemen! Form square!’
The legionaries were still struggling into formation around him when he realised that the approaching riders were friendly, and he pushed through the detachment’s disordered ranks, standing in place and waiting to greet the cavalrymen’s leader. The decurion reined his horse in alongside the big centurion and nodded his greeting.
‘Greeting, Centurion. We’ve been watching you for a while now, and my double-pay and I have been pondering what might bring a half-century of legionaries north under the command of an auxiliary centurion? In fact we’ve got money riding on what it is you’re doing out here, so be a good man and enlighten us, eh?’
The detachment’s soldiers watched in exhausted silence as Dubnus chatted with the cavalry officer, who climbed down from his horse after a moment’s conversation, clapping the big Tungrian on the shoulder, and then turned to another rider with his hand out. Squatting, he took out his dagger and drew a quick map in the dirt, then stood and clasped hands with Dubnus, remounted and led his men away to the north with a farewell salute. The Tungrian watched them go for a moment, then turned and beckoned Titus to join him.
‘I told you something would turn up to tell us where to look for them. Those cavalrymen met up with the men we’re hunting a while ago, and stopped to talk. They were heading north and then east, riding for the Dinpaladyr, apparently, and making no secret of their mission, although Felicia was presumably hidden in the forest while they talked. Their decurion said he was pretty sure that there was something not right with a small party of praetorians riding this far north, hunting for a traitor or not, never mind the fact that the other centurion in the party was so clearly a nasty piece of work. When I told him their purpose, and that they’ve taken the doctor as a hostage, he told me everything he could about them, including the fact that your soldier Maximus is still riding with them.’
Titus nodded, his eyes cold with the anticipation of revenge.
‘So we keep marching?’
The Tungrian shook his head, casting a sideways glance at the exhausted legionaries.
‘No, we need them rested for tomorrow’s march. Besides, they haven’t got any more than another few miles in them, not without losing half of them by the wayside. The decurion told me about a hunter’s path that cuts the corner on their ride to the north and then east. Another thirty miles will see us within spitting distance of the spot where he told them to camp for the night and tomorrow. Seems that there’s a Venicone warband camped between them and the Dinpaladyr, and he’s advised them to wait it out rather than trying to get around the barbarians. They’ll be stopped in one place, and with one last effort we’ll be able to overtake them. And then we’ll see how brave they are, if your boys can put away thirty miles tomorrow.’
Titus nodded slowly, turning to survey his men with hard eyes.
‘They’ll manage it. Every one of them. They owe me that much. I’ll drive them on until they’re hanging out of their own arseholes…’
The detached cohorts turned from the line of march in the late afternoon of the next day, guided by Decurion Felix’s cavalry scouts to a location less than five miles from the Votadini fortress, as close as the experienced Tungrian senior centurions deemed was safe until the sun was beneath the horizon. The cohorts’ centurions were instructed to allow their men to rest, and enjoy the unaccustomed luxury of not having to build the customary turf-walled marching camp for the night’s stop. First Spear Frontinius gathered his officers and issued a terse set of orders that made very clear what the night held.
‘We’re not stopping here long, so tell your men to get their hard tack down their necks and be ready to move. The baggage train will be staying here when we move forward, so make sure they’ve all got their cloaks handy for later on when we’re hanging about in the dark waiting for the fight to start.’
He stamped off to Tribune Scaurus’s officers’ meeting, arriving at the tent’s entrance at the same time as Tribune Laenas and his first spear made their way in from the legion cohort’s lines. To Frontinius’s experienced eye, well used to looking for the signs as to whether a soldier was more disposed to fight or run when the time came, Laenas looked nervous, but steady enough, and his gaze was resolute when the Tungrian came to attention and snapped him a salute. His subordinate Canutius followed him into the tent without ever meeting Frontinius’s eye, and the latter paused for a moment with a thoughtful look on his face before following him in, telling the guards to close the flap and withdraw a dozen paces.
‘I’ll be putting my head out to check on you at some point, and if there’s any suspicion that you bastards are trying to eavesdrop you’ll all be dancing to the tickle of the scourge before we go into action.’
Inside the tent he found the detachment’s senior officers assembled and ready, every one of them looking serious as the reality of impending combat bore down on them. Scaurus waited for his signal that the entrance was secured before speaking, looking about his officers in the lamps’ flickering light.
‘Very well, gentlemen, let’s get down to it now that we’re all here. Decurion Felix?’
‘All quiet, Tribune. We’ve had to take a few hunters prisoner rather than risk them alerting the defenders, but none of them resisted and most of them were keen to tell us everything they could about the men holding the fortress. They’ll stay here with the baggage carts under guard when we move forward, and I anticipate no problems with any of them. Apart from that the ground between here and the objective is clear.’
Scaurus nodded.
‘Approach routes?’
‘Just the one, really, a nice wide hunter’s path that’ll get us to within two miles of the fortress undetected. After that it’s wide open ground pretty much all the way to the gate.’
‘So we’re going to need our deception plan after all. First Spear Frontinius, are your men ready?’
Frontinius nodded confidently, hands on his hips.
‘Yes, Tribune, my Fifth and Ninth centuries will be going forward just before first light and attempting an entry to the fortress just as we’ve discussed before.’
‘Thank you. I know I promised the next proper fight to the Twentieth Legion, but given that we seem to be wholly dependent on a fiction that my auxiliaries seem far better experienced to carry off, I’m going to have to put the First Tungrians in the first wave. I’m sorry, Tribune Laenas, I know how keen you were to take your turn at the sharp end. If it’s any consolation, you’ll have plenty of chance to spill blood for the Emperor if tomorrow morning’s ruse is a failure, although much of it may be Roman if we’re left outside the fortress’s walls when it’s done.’
Laenas bowed to his commander’s decision with a slight smile of regret, but it wasn’t the tribune that Frontinius was watching so much as his first spear. Canutius’s face was a study in surprise and relief, his cheeks slightly blown out while his eyes lifted to the tent’s ceiling.
Thanking his gods, from the look of it, Frontinius mused to himself, and no kind of support to an uncertain young tribune. The other man looked across the tent at him, and Frontinius nodded, keeping his face straight. He knows. I keep my face expressionless and yet I’d swear he knows that I despise him. Probably because he despises himself just as deeply.
When Martos heard that Votadini prisoners had been taken by the cavalry scouts he hurried through the sprawling cohorts in search of his people, Marcus walking alongside him at his request.
‘There’s no telling what will happen to them if someone doesn’t point out that they’re not your enemies, not since the…’
His eyes narrowed as he caught sight of half a dozen disconsolate-looking men squatting on the ground at spear-point, fully twice their number of legionaries standing guard over them. Marcus’s face hardened, and he took Martos’s arm before the Votadini prince could react, restraining the bristling warrior’s urge to spring to his people’s aid.
‘Leave this to me.’ He stepped forward, searching the guards’ ranks for whoever was in authority. A squint-eyed watch officer was the only candidate in sight, and as Marcus approached he vigorously chewed and swallowed whatever it was he’d been eating, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Ignoring the man’s somewhat half-hearted salute, he pointed at the prisoners and shook his head in a show of amazement.
‘So tell me, why in the name of Jupiter first and greatest would these men be under guard? They’re our allies, or hasn’t anybody in the Twentieth Legion been paying attention for the last week?’
The watch officer dithered in the face of the unknown officer’s wrath, falling back on the time-honoured defence of his superior officer.
‘My optio, sir, he said I was to make sure they don’t go anywhere, and I thought…’
‘Or you didn’t think! These men are a valuable source of assistance and information, and you’ve got them looking at the business end of your spears as if they were being kept for sale to the slave traders…’ He caught the look on the man’s face and seethed with fresh anger. ‘Fuck me, so that’s the game is it! Fetch your optio here, soldier. Now!’
The young centurion stood tapping one foot impatiently while the watch officer scurried off to unload himself of the responsibility for this unwelcome development, his face pale with barely suppressed rage, and by the time the optio walked up with a decidedly uncertain look on his face, he was very clearly fuming.
‘Centurion, I…’
‘Slaves!? You were going to slip these men into the slave take, were you, quietly ease them in alongside whoever we end up taking prisoner when the fortress falls? Make a nice little sum for the men involved, and nobody any worse off unless you count these poor bastards, sold into slavery alongside the men that have probably been working their way through the tribe’s women for the last few weeks. You should all be ashamed of yourselves, and if there’s a centurion involved you can fetch the bastard out here now and I’ll tell him the same. Release these prisoners to me now, or whoever’s responsible will be paying a high price for his stupidity. Now!’
The optio thought it over for a second or so before gesturing to his men to raise their spears. Marcus glared at him for a moment longer, then gestured to the waiting Votadini prince.
‘They’re yours, Martos. I think we’d better take them to join the rest of your men before anyone else takes a fancy to them.’ As he turned away from the optio a final thought occurred to him, and he turned back with a raised finger. ‘One last thing. I expect to have their personal possessions returned to me before we move again, or your tribune and mine will be discussing why these men can’t return to the fortress tonight, and the danger of giving away our presence when they’re missed. Weapons, clothing, boots, jewellery, the lot. Just one item short and you’ll find yourself in the ranks rather than pushing them around. Try me!’
Safe inside the Tungrian ranks, the tribesmen lost some of the hunted look they had worn all the way through the camp, and when a selected handful of Martos’s warriors joined the group they relaxed into the pleasure of greeting men they knew, and had feared were dead. Marcus nodded and walked away, leaving Martos to speak with his people in private in the time that remained before the cohort resumed its cautious advance towards the fortress. Squatting in the middle of the small group, he gently but firmly questioned them as to the events of the previous weeks, and the clearer their story became the darker his expression grew.
‘And they allow you to leave the fortress to hunt?’
The man he was speaking to nodded dourly.
‘They take our kills and allow us a portion to feed our families once, if we’re lucky. I would have run for the north many days since if it weren’t for my children. As for my woman…’
Martos put a hand on the hunter’s shoulder, patting it gently.
‘I know. And I’ll make them pay in blood for this. But first I have to get in…’
He stopped speaking as a pair of legionaries dumped a pile of the men’s gear in front of them and walked away quickly, looking about them at the Tungrians as they left, clearly less than comfortable in the presence of the auxiliaries. The hunters combed through the clothing and weapons, and were soon reunited with most of their possessions.
‘Your friend the Roman is a decent man, it seems.’
Martos nodded in agreement with the hunter’s quietly expressed opinion.
‘I’ve not seen him that angry anywhere other than in the heat of battle. They’re not all bastards. Now, I have a trade to propose to you. That cloak…’
When Marcus returned to rouse the century from their dozing an hour later, with orders from First Spear Frontinius for the 9th to lead the cohort to the closest point that they could get to the Dinpaladyr without being spotted by the inevitable watchers on the walls, he found the hunters waiting quietly to be told what to do, but no sign of Martos whatsoever.
‘That’s his cloak,’ he told one of them, ‘so he must have yours, right?’
The Votadini nodded with a quiet smile of pride.
‘The master of the Dinpaladyr goes to war wearing my cloak to disguise him from the Selgovae.’
Marcus shook his head and turned to Arminius, who had accompanied him back from the command tent and was standing beside him with a knowing look on his face.
‘He’s lost it this time. One man against five hundred hostile warriors? What good can that do? We’ll be lucky to even find his corpse.’