I was stamping my own feet to move the blood when I heard other footsteps approach – Centurion H, his face framed by moonlight.
‘That is you under there, isn’t it Felix?’ he asked, and I pulled the scarf down to show him.
‘Why are you up here, sir?’ I asked, puzzled.
‘I thought you should be told before the parade in the morning,’ he explained. ‘You’ll be going there as soon as it’s light, and the watches are changed.’ H’s tone was grim, and my stomach tightened at the implication.
‘What parade?’ I managed.
‘Punishment,’ he told me heavily. ‘They’re putting your friend to death.’
58
I struggled to comprehend the centurion’s words – Titus, sentenced to death?
By the grey moonlight, H saw the fear and confusion that danced across my cragged features.
‘Prefect Caedicius wants to make an example of him.’
‘It’s just gambling,’ I protested. ‘It’s in every legion!’
‘It’s not that.’ H shook his head. ‘They were taking the good ration of meat for the officers, and selling that on. Replaced it with dog.’ He grimaced, doubtless thinking of what rested inside his own stomach.
‘That wasn’t Titus,’ I swore, certain of it. ‘He’s no fool.’
‘Wasn’t the woman, either,’ H agreed. ‘Titus’s partner Plancus has copped to it, but it doesn’t matter. Prefect wants an example. I expect Malchus just wants someone to die because he was tricked, and ate it.’
I placed my javelin against the wall, and pulled my hand across my face, willing my emotions to quieten. Dawn was only a few hours away, and the death of my friend would come with it. There had to be some way out.
‘How will they do it?’ I forced myself to ask.
‘Beheading,’ the centurion answered coldly. ‘It’s a mercy, compared to what Malchus wanted.’
I didn’t ask what that was, but H told me anyway.
‘He wanted to gut the man alive so that the dogs could eat at him. Poetic end, he said.’
‘Gods,’ I swore. Even after I had seen what Malchus was capable of, he had still managed to surprise me.
‘The man’s a fucking monster,’ H agreed. ‘I looked up to that bastard.’
That was no surprise – who hadn’t? Aside from the few that knew the truth, Malchus was still a hero to all in the fort.
‘Caedicius wants discipline but he’s not sick,’ H summarized. ‘And he’s not stupid, either, Felix. I could see tonight that the fact Romans are eating dog – intentionally or otherwise – has shown him how truly fucked we are here.’
‘He doesn’t think we can hold through winter?’
‘He knows that it doesn’t matter if we do. No one’s coming, winter or spring. Where are the legions going to come from – the Emperor’s arse? Everyone is pretending that we didn’t lose three legions in the forest. There is no relief coming, no matter when. The Rhine is the frontier now, and if it isn’t coming to us …’
‘… we have to go to it,’ I finished, for the idea was simple. It was the execution that mattered.
‘I have a plan,’ H told me then. ‘An idea to get your friend out of his execution, and to get us to the Rhine.’
I could hear in his tone that he believed both things were truly possible. What I could not understand was why he was telling me this on the fort’s walls, instead of putting them into action.
I looked at his face, which had once held nothing but humour, but was now a mask broken by war.
‘Why are you telling me this, H?’ I asked.
‘Because I need you, Felix. I need you to volunteer for something that you shouldn’t expect to come back from.’
Dawn crept over the horizon like a cloaked assassin, thick clouds heavy against a dark sky. There was death coming with the rising gloom, and I had thought of nothing else since H had left me on the battlements to set his plan in motion.
The replacement sections joined our own on the walls. We stood double watch as the darkness slid away, once again revealing nothing before us but frostbitten fields and forests – the terror today would come from within our camp, not without.
It was with a sour stomach and swimming mind that I marched with my century to the parade square. So far as I knew, I was the only one aware of what would await us there. I considered warning my friends, but what would be gained by telling them? No, I’d rather spare them a few moments’ worry in a life that was already soaked in it.
‘This had better not have anything to do with cutting rations again,’ Stumps grumbled. He was walking as stiffly as a corpse from the beating I’d delivered.
‘Can’t cut them any more.’ Livius, our new section commander, tried to smile. ‘My belly button’s already poking out of my back.’
‘Things will change when I get into the QM’s,’ Stumps promised. ‘Consummate professional, I am.
‘What’s up with you?’ he asked me then, irritated at the lack of conversation.
‘Tired,’ I lied, my limbs alive with nervous dread at the thought of what was to come.
‘Bollocks.’ He spat. ‘I’ve seen that look before. You’re either gonna do something stupid, or you’re feeling sorry for yourself. Maybe both. Is it the girl?’ he pressed.
‘Yes,’ I lied again. The truth was that my mind had been so full of worry for Titus, so full of nerves at what H had proposed, that I had had little time to think over my romantic failure.
‘Century!’ Albus called as we reached the parade square. ‘Halt!’
Hobnails tramped down into the packed dirt, frost cracking beneath our feet. Our halt was ragged, a reflection of our state of mind.
‘That was a fucking abortion,’ Albus barked, though I doubted he was in any mood for drill practice between the endless rotations of guard duties.
Limbs soon began to cool as we waited on the square. Coming off watch, we were one of the first subdivisions to arrive. Gradually, the space at the camp’s centre began to fill with blocks of legionaries and archers, and the scattered mass of civilians – the men on the wall aside, all within the fort were obliged to witness what was to come.
‘Maybe the Emperor’s dropped in to boost morale,’ Stumps quipped to a few chuckles amongst the men.
I was silent, my eyes on the headquarters building whence I expected the officers and the condemned to emerge.
They came not long after, Caedicius and Malchus at the fore, the stone-faced pair followed by two sections of soldiers. It was impossible for me to glimpse the prisoners in their midst. When they came to a halt in the centre of the parade square I cursed my position – I could see neither Titus nor his partners, surrounded as they were by shield and armour. What I could see was the wooden block that was thumped menacingly down in front of the fort’s commanders.
Immediately, the men around me either drew breaths or forced them out, muscles tightening as they realized what the block implied, shoulders then sagging as they remembered they were safe within the ranks.
The square was as silent and unkind as the clouded sky.
Caedicius stepped forwards. ‘I told you I wanted discipline,’ he began, his deep voice booming and bouncing from the cold wooden buildings that surrounded us. ‘I told you this. I told you how we should behave as Romans. How we needed to behave to survive.
‘You have failed me.’ He spoke sadly. ‘You have failed yourselves. But worst of all, you have failed Rome.’
A long silence held over the square then, broken only by unruly children who shuffled irritably in the arms of their parents. Gripped by cold, a baby at the far end of the square began to wail. It was a long, plaintive cry. When Malchus stepped forwards, I wondered if he was enjoying the child’s discomfort.
‘These prisoners’, Malchus began, his voice cutting over the cries of the baby, ‘have been seeking to profit through selling and trading rations that were intended for the garrison as a whole. For that—’ He stopped then as the baby doubled its effor
ts. ‘Get that fucking baby off my parade square!’ he roared, and I saw a woman run from the ranks. Despite the imminent death, or because of it, a ripple of laughter broke out amongst the soldiers.
Malchus heard it. ‘You do not fucking laugh!’ he bellowed at the assembled troops, his hand pointed like a blade. ‘You do not speak! You do not eat unless you are ordered to! You do not shit, until you are ordered to! This is what happens when you think of yourself first, and not Rome!’ He swept out his arm. At the gesture, a limp form was dragged forwards by two soldiers.
Plancus. The man’s neck dropped heavily on to the chopping block. Perhaps fear had taken over his limbs, for any fight seemed to have left him. More than likely, Malchus had already beaten every inch of his body.
Prefect Caedicius stepped forwards. After a look at the shaking man before him, he addressed his words to the parade. ‘Legionary Plancus is guilty of stealing rations from his legion during a time of war and siege. For this crime, he is sentenced to death. Centurion Malchus, carry out the sentence.’
Malchus drew the blade. I could only imagine the look of savage contentment on his taut face.
I could have looked away then, or shut my eyes. I don’t know why I didn’t. Instead, I watched Malchus bring the longsword over in a looping arc. Instantly I – like every other seasoned soldier in the ranks – knew that it was a bad stroke.
The blade bit across the back of Plancus’s shoulders. A hideous scream cut through the assembled ranks like a chariot’s scythed blades.
Malchus pulled his weapon free of flesh, and I had no doubt that he was smiling now, exacting his vengeance. He was too good a swordsman for such a poor stroke, and the look on Caedicius’s face told me that he knew it too. I saw the prefect’s lips move, and I wondered if he was urging the man to finish the job quickly.
The blade swung again. This time it bit the neck, but the strike was weak. There was no scream, and I expected Plancus’s spine had been broken. The man yet lived, though, and his gurgled coughs spat out across the cold dirt.
Caedicius spoke to Malchus again. The words were hidden, but there was no mistaking the urgency in his face.
Malchus swung. It was a beautiful strike, and in its arc was delivered a message: those who crossed Malchus would die terribly for it. I could only imagine what restraint it took the man to hold back from kicking the severed head across the square, and hacking the body to pieces. Instead, Plancus’s leaking body was loaded on to a stretcher and carried clear.
‘Next one,’ Malchus called.
My stomach knotted into a ball of stone. Blood beat against my skull. Finally, I chanced a look at Stumps – my comrade’s face was white. He was no fool, and the plot of this play was now obvious. Stumps knew that Titus could be the next man to kneel before the bloodied block.
‘Please, no,’ I heard him murmur through shaking teeth.
His wish was granted. It was Metella that they brought forwards. She carried herself like the bravest of soldiers, and as she approached the block, she sent a stream of violent spittle towards her executioner.
‘Try that on me, you bastard coward!’ she boomed at Malchus. ‘Easy to kill someone when they’re on their knees.’
‘Be silent!’ Caedicius ordered. ‘Die with some decency, woman.’
‘Oh, fuck off,’ Metella snarled instead. ‘I’ll see you all soon, anyway!’ she shouted as she was shoved hurriedly to her knees. ‘This fort’s fucked! No one’s coming for you, darlings! You’ll starve to death here, or die out there!’
Malchus wasted no more time in shutting her up, shoving Metella’s throat against the block with such force that the woman’s final words were choked from her.
This time, the stroke was quick; Metella’s head rolled across the dirt, crimson splattering the frosted floor in a final act of defiance.
Plancus’s death had caused revulsion in the ranks. Metella’s had brought fear – not from her death, but from her prophecy. She had voiced what all but the most optimistic in the fort feared deep down in their souls: that the fort was beyond help.
Caedicius could smell the panic. ‘Do not heed the words of a criminal,’ he began. ‘No one will starve here. There is a plan of action! It is a secret one, but something that you will all hear of soon, I promise. For now, continue in your duties. Continue to uphold the traditions and expectations of Rome!’
There was a finality to those words, and as I heard them, the first spear-point of hope began to push its way into my chest.
I felt eyes on me. It was Stumps. We shared a look: Titus?
Malchus paced forward to stand beside his prefect. My heart caught in my throat. I knew that the next words from the killer’s mouth would mean the death or salvation of my friend.
‘Parade!’ Malchus growled. Time seemed to stand still as his first command echoed in the crisp air.
‘Parade!’ the executioner called again.
‘Dismissed!’
59
I have marched across nations to war, and I have crossed a continent to escape one, but I have never felt a march so long as the one that followed our dismissal from the executions. The few hundred yards from parade ground to barrack block felt like an eternity.
I had almost collapsed in relief when the order to dismiss had passed through Malchus’s snarling lips. The cohort commander and his bloodied sword had trailed the prefect from the parade square, the prisoner’s escort following in their wake, stretchered bodies carried behind them. In none of this was there any sight of Titus.
Returning to the barrack block, I felt as though the regulation marching pace was like wading through tar. I wanted nothing more than to break ranks and sprint, but I had no choice but to force my worry back into my chest.
Stumps, having little idea of my conversation on the walls with H, had none of the same concerns, seeing only that Titus had seemingly escaped from death’s grasp once more.
‘He’s a slippery fucker.’ He beamed at me as we marched. ‘Like a fucking eel, he is. Wriggles his way into and out of everything. Shame about Metella though. I liked her.’
‘Me too,’ Brando agreed. ‘She went out well.’
‘By fuck she did, didn’t she?’ Stumps laughed with pride. ‘Spat right in Malchus’s face, the cunt!’
‘Keep your voice down,’ I hissed.
He gave me an apologetic look. ‘She did die well though. Bigger balls on her than most men.’
Albus called us to a halt outside our barrack block. The movement was observed far more crisply than it had been earlier that morning – the executions had had the desired effect of sharpening minds and attitudes. Overall, though, I sensed a feeling of disquiet in the air. Stumps was buoyed up by the fact that his friend had escaped the fate of his fellow ringleaders, but Metella’s last words had struck a deep chord with the fort’s garrison, and it showed in their stooped postures, and the absence of good-natured insults and laughter.
Albus was as glum as any of the men. ‘Fall out,’ he told us, already walking to his quarters. ‘Next duty’s at noon.’
I was already sprinting to our room.
‘You missed your bed that much?’ Stumps called after my back. I ignored him, pushing open the door and pulling back the partition to our living space.
A familiar figure was lying in my bed.
‘All right?’ he grunted.
Titus lay back on my bed, chewing a piece of dried meat. He was not alone in the room. Centurion H leaned back against the wall, his arms folded.
‘How was it?’ he asked me.
I shook my head. ‘Malchus is a bastard,’ was all I said.
‘I’ll miss Metella,’ Titus said, getting to his feet. ‘Plancus deserved what he got, the fucking idiot.’
I was about to tell Titus that no one deserved such a death as Plancus had suffered, when what was left of our section began to enter behind me.
‘Brando,’ H put in quickly. ‘Watch the door.’
‘You slippery bastard,’ Stumps smiled, p
ushing his way through and hitting his friend across one of his massive shoulders. ‘How the fuck did you pull that off?’
‘Ask them,’ Titus grunted, with just a nod of his head towards myself and H.
‘We’re not out of the fire yet,’ H explained, frowning. ‘But the prefect’s seen enough to know that we can’t stay here forever. We’ve had no instruction or word from the garrisons on the Rhine, so if they have sent any scouts they’re not making it past the goat-shaggers.’
‘What’s this got to do with Titus?’ Stumps asked, pulling a face.
H shrugged. ‘In return for his life, Titus has volunteered to go on a scouting party of our own. We’re going to search out their army, and find a way to bolt around them to the Rhine once we get a heavy enough storm. I convinced Caedicius that the best people to come with me and do it are the ones who got away from Arminius in the forest.’
‘H is going to lead us,’ I put in. ‘Me and Titus, anyway.’
My friend’s face darkened. ‘Having your own little picnic is it, you fuckers? Well, what if I want to come?’ Stumps was clearly desperate not to lose sight of a comrade he had only moments ago thought condemned.
‘You’re in no state to lower yourself on to a latrine, never mind fight,’ Titus told him – truthfully.
‘And I need you to look out for Linza,’ I added. ‘Micon and Brando, too. You’ve seen what Malchus is, Stumps. I can’t leave her alone here when he’s got a blade to grind.’
‘I’ll trade places with you,’ Stumps pressed defiantly.
‘Won’t work.’ H shook his head. ‘Caedicius has a high opinion of Felix, and Malchus can’t go back on his old praise, either. We’re taking a few others with us to send word to the Rhine about our intentions, but you’re in no state to be a runner, Stumps.’
‘Ah, fuck the lot of you anyway,’ our comrade cursed. ‘Go and get yourselves killed and I’ll stay here and keep warm. You’re the fucking idiots, not me.’
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