I let them be at first. The man had brought it upon himself. And yet … this was my section. I was the one that carried the burden of command and leadership. If you want to be a leader, you lead.
‘Enough!’ I thundered, and the two Batavians backed away instantly, their breathing heavy.
Finally convinced that the rain of kicks was over, the man slowly uncovered his head and looked up at me.
‘What’s your name?’ I asked him gently.
‘Statius.’
‘This is my section,’ I told him.
‘I understand,’ he whimpered.
‘Good.’
And then I brought the hobnails of my sandals down on to his face. This time, when my men began kicking, I did not stop them.
It was only the sound of a voice in the doorway that brought the violence to an end. A hard voice, steel dragged over gravel.
‘This looks familiar,’ it said.
I turned to look at the man in the doorway.
I turned to look at a ghost.
Titus.
19
The slab of a man filled the doorway, his rugged face drawn into a smile as he surveyed the bloodied soldier that lay moaning at my feet.
Titus.
What did I expect had happened to the man who had commanded our section through the battle of the forest? Either that he was dead with the others, or rich beyond its reach. Rich with the legion’s pay chests that he and I had found as battle disintegrated into massacre. Clear of the fighting and in the trees, I had made the choice to turn my back on the riches, and to instead seek out my surrounded comrades, and death. Titus had chosen life, and had melted into the forest with the pay chests. Both of our roads had led here.
‘Fuck,’ I swore softly. How else could I express the hundreds of thoughts and words that now bounced inside my skull?
Titus looked up to one of the bunks. Stumps was staring at his old friend with wide eyes and open mouth. He seemed paralysed.
‘I’d shut that hole before the Syrians put something in it.’ Titus smiled. ‘Are you gonna come down here or not?’
Stumps did. As he embraced his friend, tears rolled over his cheeks. I thought I caught the sight of them in Titus’s eyes, too.
‘Everyone else out,’ I ordered. This was a moment for our old section. For the men who had stood beside each other in the forest.
Brando and Folcher understood. They grabbed Statius’s limp form and dragged him from the room by his ankles. The others fell in behind them.
‘Not you,’ I said, grabbing Micon. ‘You’re a part of this.’
Stumps and Titus finally broke their embrace. Stumps made to speak, but only doubled over in tears. He buried his face in his friend’s thick chest. Micon watched, his face blank.
‘Still the brains of the unit, are you?’ Titus grunted at the lad. ‘But I’m glad you’re alive,’ he added with warmth.
‘Thanks,’ Micon muttered. He was out of his depth, and shuffled back into the room’s corner.
‘We thought you were dead,’ Stumps finally managed.
Titus shrugged. ‘We all thought we were all dead.’
He turned his eyes to me, then: ‘I can’t decide if you’re the luckiest or unluckiest bloke I’ve ever met. You make a habit of falling from one death trap into another, but then you’re harder to kill than a fucking cockroach.’
‘Uglier, though,’ Stumps chimed in, now conscious of his tears.
‘How the fuck did you get here?’ Titus asked us.
And so we told him.
Titus sat on the opposite bed to mine and listened patiently as I told him about our short time as prisoners. I left out my reckoning with Arminius, and how the German had revealed that I was more than just a simple deserter from the Eighth Legion, beginning instead with how I had found Stumps when the army had surrendered.
Once I had finished the story of our escape, Titus asked if we knew the fate of our comrade Moonface, or Centurion Pavo.
‘I saw Pavo go under a horse,’ I told him. What had happened to Moonface, none of us knew.
‘They executed every one of the officers?’ Titus asked me again.
I nodded.
‘Lot of room for promotion now,’ Stumps joked darkly.
‘Maybe if there was a legion.’ Titus shook his head. ‘I still can’t believe it. Three legions? How many people that I knew just disappeared in that forest?’
The answer was in the hundreds. The Seventeenth Legion had been home to Titus and Stumps for years. Their friends, acquaintances and enemies of decades had been wiped away in the space of days.
‘I didn’t think I’d ever see a legion fit into one barrack room.’ Titus grimaced, looking around at the half-section that had survived the massacre.
Silence fell. It was time for him to tell his own story.
‘Micon.’ He pulled some coins from a purse. ‘Go find us some wine. Good lad.’
‘You know he’ll be wandering around the camp lost as fuck?’ Stumps asked.
That had been Titus’s intention. He wanted total privacy for his own story. He had that confidence in Stumps, his old comrade. He had it in me, a witness to his secrets.
‘When our battle lines broke, I was on my own. I was lost. I made it to the trees, but there was a group of them after me. I couldn’t make it back to the body. I’m sorry.’
Stumps nodded. ‘It was chaos.’ he agreed, letting his friend know he understood, and held no grudge that Titus had made his own escape. ‘Felix thought you were dead.’
I didn’t know what to say. Titus filled the space.
‘I took a spear and went down, but the mail held. You know what it was like. I probably looked dead.’
Stumps nodded again at the words. Evidently I was forgiven my own fictitious part in Titus’s separation from his comrades.
‘I got away from that first lot,’ Titus went on, ‘but when I came out of the forest my tracks were picked up by a group of horsemen. I could see them coming after me, but I kept my nose just ahead by going through rivers and trees when I could. I even crawled for a fucking day.’ He spat, angry at the memory. ‘I could see smoke on the horizon, just enough for it to mean life, not pillaging.’
‘This place?’ Stumps asked.
‘This place. But the horsemen got me first. My legs gave up on me with less than a mile to go.’
‘Then how …’ Stumps began.
‘They were Roman.’ Titus laughed, enjoying the irony. ‘I’d been running from Romans. They were out looking for Varus’s army.’
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘Remember when Varus abandoned the baggage train? A lot of civvies turned back then. The smart ones had even turned back before that. The hairies probably got most of them, but some made it here. The command here didn’t know how bad things were with Varus, but they knew it was bad enough for him to abandon the baggage train, and so the camp commander sent out scouts.’
‘You were the one that told them about Arminius?’ I suspected.
‘I was. They barred the gates then, and Prefect Caedicius loves me for it.’ The big man grinned. ‘Gave me any choice of post I wanted.’
‘Let me guess.’ Stumps laughed. ‘You told him you wanted to be commander of anus inspection for the archers?’
‘I told him I wanted to be quartermaster, you dickhead. Every fort has a black market, and a fort under siege is our chance to get rich.’
I think I smiled at that point. Titus had survived the massacre of the forest and had escaped Arminius’s army by a whisker, only to become besieged by them, but money was foremost on his mind no matter his predicament.
‘I’ve got plans if we survive this place,’ the man grunted, feeling my look. ‘And call it fortune if you want, but someone wanted me to be here. Stumps, Metella is here. She’s been running the show since the army pulled out of Minden.’
Metella. I remembered the name, and the woman. She was as massive as Titus himself, with a mouth more foul. The industrious camp
follower had run an inn in the town where the army had pitched its tents for the summer, and evidently her business did not stop with wine. As a friend of Titus’s, I should have guessed as much.
‘I’m the quartermaster,’ Titus spelled out. ‘And she runs the black stuff.’
Despite the death and the misery, fortune did seem to smile on this man who lived for coin.
‘I’m glad you’re in your element,’ I offered. ‘But why are you telling us this?’
Titus shrugged, as if it was obvious. ‘I want you two in on it.’
‘You actually think we’re leaving here alive?’ Stumps laughed.
Titus face’s clouded over. His words were steel. ‘We didn’t come this far to die here. Do you want in on this or not?’
Stumps shrugged. ‘I’ll keep you company.’
‘And you?’ he asked, the question thrust towards me like a spear.
I held my tongue for a moment, looking into my comrade’s dark face. ‘Let’s talk outside.’
We stepped on to the packed dirt outside the block, and walked in silence. I had no destination in mind, only that I wanted privacy with the man who knew that I had deserted from the Eighth Legion in Pannonia. For my part, I knew that Titus was a smuggler and a murderer. He was not the kind of person to hold secrets without considering them leverage, nor would he look on a loose end with favour.
‘You still think I want you dead.’ He half smiled, reading my thoughts or, more likely, my body language; I realized then that I was tense and coiled, as if waiting on him to strike. In truth, there was an uncomfortable tension within the fort that plucked at my senses. I wondered now if its cause had been Titus, watching me, and waiting.
‘You’re not a talker, Felix.’ Titus said, stressing my new name to remind me that he was aware of my true identity, or at least part of it. ‘You haven’t even told Stumps about what happened.’
‘I’ve told no one,’ I confirmed.
‘We’re the two most honest men in the army.’ Titus smiled. ‘I’m a selfish bastard, and I’m all right with that. I’m not going to pretend that I give a shit about anything other than myself and a few mates. After what we went through in the forest, I think you fall into that second category.’
It was something I’d considered before. True, the forest had taken us from plotting each other’s deaths to saving each other’s lives, but that made us comrades more than friends. Friend? Could I call him that? Did I truly have his trust? Did he have mine?
The big bastard grinned. ‘You were glad to see me, weren’t you?’
I had been.
‘Friends then,’ I allowed, and the man snorted. ‘What happened to the pay chests?’ I asked, more out of curiosity than from any remote hope of touching them. For a moment, I had seen those coins as my passage to Britain and a new life. Now I expected they were scattered across the forest’s floor. I was half right.
‘I buried them,’ Titus confided in me, with the same sense of sadness as if he’d buried his own family. ‘Goat-fuckers were looking for survivors, so I found a spot by a river and buried them.’
‘What about the donkey?’ I asked suddenly, referring to the beast that had carried the chests.
Titus choked on a laugh. ‘What about it?’
‘I don’t know. What happened to it?’
‘I killed it, of course. Didn’t want any witnesses … Fuck me, you’re a strange one, Felix. I let it go. Didn’t want the hassle of its tracks. Bloody donkey.’ He laughed again.
I had surprised myself with the question, but I was almost relieved to know the animal had been let loose.
‘I remember how to get there.’ Titus brought my wandering mind back to the hoard of coins. ‘I have a life waiting for me outside of the army,’ he reminded me.
He had told me briefly of that life. Shown me a ghost of it. A son, presumed dead at sea, now alive and in trouble. What kind of trouble, Titus had not said, but I could see that the man was resolved to end it. If Titus did live through this siege, then I doubted it would be the last time he saw bloodshed, or that he would die peacefully in his own bed. Some men were born for violent death.
‘I don’t think Arminius can get over these walls,’ Titus asserted. ‘He’s going to try and starve us out, but we’ll be all right. We’ll find a way, and then you, me, Stumps – and a few others we trust – we go back for the chests. What are your new lads like? The two Batavians look handy.’
I kept silent. Titus took that to mean I was turning down his offer. He had no idea that I was picturing the white cliffs of Britain, and the ship that would take me to them.
‘Felix, I know you still have your doubts about me, but if we’re not blood brothers after the forest, then what are we?’
I turned to look at the man who had stood by me through the worst of it. There was no denying that I had missed his dangerous presence.
‘You’ve seen what’s outside of those walls?’ I asked, a genuine smile creasing my cracked cheeks. ‘What we are, Titus, are ghosts.’
20
I stood on the eastern wall with a solitary companion. The night around us was cold and moonless. I pulled my scarf tight around my face to fight off its touch.
It was deep into our watch, and a light wind had pushed the cold inside my bones. I rolled my shoulders in their joints, and flexed my fingers against the shaft of a javelin. My shield rested against the wall, and now I reached for it.
‘I’m going to check the others,’ I told Micon beside me. The rest of my section was spaced out to cover ground, but I kept the young soldier within arm’s reach as we stood watch. ‘Don’t move.’
I made my way from man to man. The section covered a hundred yards of wall. More than eight men should have been assigned to such a stretch, but the fort was understrength. Arminius would want the soldiers on the walls to burn out through fatigue, but Caedicius was refusing to indulge him, instead gambling that he could rest his forces and have enough warning to reinforce the wall in case of an attack in the night.
It was a tactic I hoped would not be put to the test.
‘Black as a Syrian’s arsehole,’ Stumps greeted me, looking out into the darkness.
‘You seem to have their arses on your mind a lot,’ I responded. Stumps was silent. He never knew how to take it when I tried to make a joke.
‘Fucking cold,’ he said instead. ‘If it is a siege, it won’t be much fun. German winter’s savage.’
‘It’ll be savage on his own men, too.’
‘Yeah, but something about being uncomfortable in your own country makes it a bit easier to put up with, don’t you think? Not like they’re going to go short of supplies or firewood.’
I couldn’t argue with the man. ‘Firewood’s one thing we’ve got. Even with the civilians housed there’re still enough empty buildings we can tear down.’
‘We’ll see,’ Stumps conceded. We lapsed into silence for a moment. ‘I’m so glad he’s alive,’ he then told me, referring to his old friend, Titus.
‘Me too.’
There was a moment before he spoke again. ‘You said you saw him die,’ he said. The words were simply stated, but accusation simmered beneath the calm tone.
‘I thought I did.’
Stumps said nothing. I decided it was time to leave, and began to turn.
‘Did he run?’ he asked me. ‘Just be honest with me, Felix. Did Titus run?’
I turned back to face the man. It was too dark to make out his features. I expected his eyes would be filled with anguish. Worry and doubt that his friend had saved his own skin, and left his comrades behind.
No good would come of the truth.
‘I thought he was dead,’ I lied. ‘I’m glad that I was wrong.’
I walked away then and returned to Micon, relieved to find the young one where I had left him. Lying to Stumps was not something I enjoyed doing, but it was necessary. He had cheered in the days since we arrived in the fort, but his mind was fragile. He didn’t need the truth of his frie
nd’s desertion placed atop the other traumas. I wondered how Titus would approach the truth, should he and Stumps survive to retrieve the pay chests, and the coins that Titus had chosen over what he had thought would be death with his comrades.
‘What was that?’ Micon spoke up in the darkness, breaking me from my thoughts.
‘What was what?’
‘I thought I heard something.’
I said nothing. The fort was a noisy place, even at night. Wood creaked. The waters of the river rolled by. Dogs barked, and cats screeched. It wasn’t a place that made a man feel comfortable, and I was certain that young Micon—
‘There it is again!’ he hissed.
I held a finger to his lips, and controlled my breathing. I strained to hear. Nothing. Nothing, until—
A soft bump against wood.
It came from our left, on the stretch of wall held by the next section.
‘Don’t move,’ I whispered, stepping off. ‘Six Section?’ I hissed. ‘Six Section?’
‘What?’ a soldier answered from along the battlements.
I ignored him; the sound had come again. It was wood against wood, and I knew then that death was about to follow in its wake.
‘Ladders!’ I shouted at the top of my lungs. ‘They’re putting ladders up! Find them!’
I rushed to the edge of the wall, looking downwards. It was a carpet of black, but alive and rolling like a night sea. My silhouette above drew a spear that cut through the air to my side, and then I was running, looking for the ladders.
A soldier of Six Section found one first. He hurled his javelin into the darkness and I heard a scream. I joined the man, and we pushed the ladder back and into the night with ease; the first casualty must have cleared the other tribesmen from the rungs.
‘Report! Report!’ I heard Centurion H’s voice below.
‘They’re on ladders! We need more men!’
I could already hear the cries to rally within the fort. Caedicius had ordered that half the men rest in full battle order, and these readily equipped troops were now being rushed to the battlements, sleep in their eyes and nervous energy in their muscles.
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