Traitor

by Geraint Jones

  I knew of the Sava – it flowed through Siscia. The deep river was vital to the supply of fortified towns dotted along its length – some in Roman hands, others belonging to the rebels.

  ‘King Pinnes and his tribe, the Breuci, are from the Sava,’ Thumper explained, ‘but they’ve mostly taken to those mountains there. Mons Alma.’

  ‘I haven’t heard of it,’ I admitted.

  ‘Not far from Sirmium.’

  ‘I’ve never been there.’

  ‘It’s a walled town.’ Thumper shrugged his thick shoulders. ‘The women are all right.’

  ‘And the walls?’

  ‘Good enough to keep King Pinnes and his army out. They tried, but the Romans held them off. That’s when they moved up to the mountains.’

  ‘Will they come out?’

  ‘You’d have to ask King Pinnes.’ Thumper laughed. ‘Come on. If we get a move on we can find some booze before nightfall.’

  * * *

  Thumper’s encouraging leadership saw that we were in the Sava Valley long before darkness.

  ‘Amazing what the threat of being punched back over the mountain can do,’ Cynbel said quietly to me, and with a smile.

  If Thumper’s followers were at all aggrieved at their leader’s method of inspiring them, they were soon happier when we were taken into a small village by a tall, gaunt-faced headman – a distant cousin of Thumper’s. As they disentangled their family tree, Cynbel and I were shown to a stable where we tended to our horses. We had walked them for days, and though the passes had been steep there had been grass, and water, and they were happy.

  I couldn’t say the same for Cynbel’s own body. His knees popped loudly as he sat back against the wall of a hovel. ‘Shit. I nearly dropped my bloody stew.’

  I wasn’t used to hearing my old tutor swear. I tasted my own food, which was not much more than water and gristle. Cynbel saw my look.

  ‘I expect this valley is being picked clean by both armies,’ he told me. ‘War is a lean time. People think of battles, and death by the sword, but for many in conflict it is a lingering end. Disease. Famine. Slavery. Those who die on the battlefield are often the lucky ones.’

  I looked at the man I had known since childhood. Fatigue had done something to pry away the Briton’s mask.

  ‘Is that what happened in your war?’

  ‘Nice try, Corvus.’ He smiled. ‘Now let an old man sleep.’

  Cynbel closed his eyes, but he could feel my own on him. He kept them shut as he continued.

  ‘You want to know what happened in my war…?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘And you want to know what will happen in this one…?’

  ‘I do.’

  Cynbel sighed. His eyes remained closed. What was he picturing?

  ‘We haven’t seen much sign of Romans, have we?’ he asked me.

  We had not.

  ‘Why do you think that is?’

  ‘Tiberius is still gathering his forces,’ I answered. ‘The rebel armies are strong enough to take on smaller forces that he might send out. A loss of them would be a blow for Rome’s pride.’

  Cynbel nodded. ‘And?’

  I said nothing.

  ‘This is a country of mountains and valleys, is it not?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘And as well as these people know their own lands to defend them, it is impossible to feed the towns without boats on rivers, and carts on roads. Tiberius and his army are not physically here in this valley, but at the same time, they are. They are everywhere, Corvus, in every empty stomach.

  ‘Tiberius doesn’t need to besiege King Pinnes at Mons Alma. He just needs to close the distant passes in order to stop food and supplies from ever reaching him. King Pinnes is a starving bear, trapped in his cave. Eventually he will be forced to leave, and then, weakened by hunger, he will fall easily to Rome’s spear.’

  I looked at Cynbel as though for the first time. He was ever my tutor, but this knowledge of war? His lessons to me had concerned mostly the abacus, not armies. Letters, not legions. Who was he?

  ‘You want to know how I know this,’ he guessed.

  I said nothing. Cynbel opened his eyes. ‘Open that.’ He pointed to the pack that was carried by his horse. ‘There are boxes. Bring them here.’

  I did as I was instructed. Cynbel opened one, revealing many tightly wrapped scrolls. He handed me one, and I read a name aloud.

  ‘Julius Caesar?’

  ‘These are his works. The Gallic Wars and The Civil Wars,’ Cynbel confirmed. ‘Written by Caesar himself, rather flatteringly of course, but lessons from one of the greatest military minds nonetheless.’

  I said nothing.

  ‘People think of war, Corvus, and they think of blades, but if courage alone was enough, why do some empires rise and others fall? There are courageous men in every nation. Every village. It is the armies where courage is guided by wisdom that conquer, and though we are not all born with brilliant minds, we can all of us learn from those who did possess such intellectual might.’

  He pointed at the scroll in my hands.

  ‘If you want to avoid a war, read. If you want to win a war, read. Every lesson that has been paid for in blood has already been committed to paper. We repeat the same mistakes as nations and people because we believe that we know better, but in truth men have already climbed every mountain, and they have left a route behind for us to follow, if only we choose to look for it.’

  ‘I will read these,’ I promised, grateful that I had the gift to do so. A gift given to me by this man, and my father.

  My father…

  I wanted to ask Cynbel more then, so much more, but he had already closed his eyes.

  ‘The old need to sleep, and the young need to read.’ I could see the trace of a smile on his lips. ‘Wake me up if they bring more stew.’

  * * *

  I read until the light failed. I had been taught the skill as a child and I was pleased to see that it was not one that had perished from lack of practice. I read of Caesar’s march into Gaul. It seemed as though the world was never empty of wars, and men who wished to fight them, and the legions – the men I had turned my back on – were as lethal now as they had been under Julius Caesar.

  ‘Planning on wiping your arse?’ Thumper asked me, taking in the scrolls before turning his attention to Cynbel. ‘Do all Britons snore like that?’

  ‘All the ones that I’ve met.’

  Thumper smiled and sat beside me. ‘I’ve told the others to head back to our home in the morning. There are enough hungry mouths along the Sava as it is. I’ll take you to Mons Alma though, don’t you worry about that.’

  But I did worry. ‘You should go back with them, Thumper. This isn’t a time to be travelling alone.’

  ‘Nor will I be!’ the older man explained with a grin. ‘I plan on staying with the army. Truth be told, Corvus, I took the meeting with yourself and Cynbel as a sign from the gods. They want me to go to the army and join my sons. How could it be anything else but that?’

  I said nothing, and a shock of pain hit me as I thought of my own father. Thumper mistook it for worry.

  ‘They haven’t built the Roman that could kill Thumper. Besides, who else is going to show you there? A Briton and a Roman deserter? Ha! No, you need Thumper, my friend. I’ll see you there well, and then we can shed some Roman blood together, eh? The three of us and my sons? Gods, the war will be over in a week!’

  He stood and shouted westwards. ‘You hear that Augustus, you shrivelled ball-sack? Thumper and the boys are coming!’

  Confused villagers looked Thumper’s way, but none said anything to the man with the hands of stone.

  ‘Say,’ he grinned at me as he dropped back to his haunches, ‘you don’t have any of that stew left, do you?’

  * * *

  The next morning Thumper, myself and Cynbel left the village. Thumper’s face was torn by a huge smile, the reason for which was the skinny pony he sat astride. The animal’s ow
ner had been reluctant to sell his four-legged friend, but he had been glad to fix a price when I’d assured him that he was meant for a mount, not meat. There are always some men who place the lives of animals as highly as their own, and in the army I had seen many hearts broken over hounds and horses.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be carrying him?’ Cynbel laughed at Thumper. ‘He must be a strong boy. You should call him Iron Spine.’

  ‘Boil your head, Briton.’ Thumper laughed. ‘We make them tough in Pannonia, man and beast all!’

  My companions were in high spirits. I was glad to see it, but for myself I felt more as though I were moving through fog. I had no clear direction of what would come next, or what I would do. I only knew that I must kill the men who had killed my father. How and when that would happen was a mystery to me.

  I missed the structure of the legion, I realised. Though I had often chafed against the discipline, orders and routine had a way of keeping a man on a path that could be for his best interests, as well as the army’s. I had been told when to eat, when to sleep, and when to kill. Now, I was simply wandering across a war zone. I had as much choice as a man could ask for, and the weight of that possibility sat on my chest like an elephant.

  ‘Does he ever smile?’ Thumper asked Cynbel.

  ‘He smiled a lot as a child.’

  ‘Did he piss himself?’

  ‘He did that, too.’

  The older men laughed.

  ‘Well,’ Thumper shrugged his thick shoulders, ‘he has that to look forward to in the future, as well.’

  They shared another laugh. Hours passed in such pleasant company. We saw locals in their homes and fields, collecting what food they could from nature’s bounty. They smiled when they saw us, but their faces were gaunt, and dark. The coast had been spared much of the rebellion’s fighting. The Sava Valley had not. Death stalked here, and we walked our horses willingly onwards towards its embrace.

  * * *

  On our second day in the valley a rumour reached us that a Roman cavalry patrol was approaching. Never before had I seen people disappear so quickly. Where they went I could not tell you, but I saw then the reason it had felt as though we were fighting ghosts in the mountains. Word spread quickly between locals who had developed the sixth sense of civilians in war. They vanished until the trouble had passed.

  ‘It’s all right!’ A villager shouted at us. ‘It’s our boys!’

  Those boys thundered into the village soon after. There were about a hundred of them, young but hardened to the saddle, and proud to receive the praise of the people they fought for.

  ‘We should introduce ourselves,’ Cynbel suggested.

  ‘Better to ride with them than alone.’ Thumper agreed.

  They were both right, and yet I felt the rope of hesitation around my neck. Yes, I was a deserter, but I had yet to commit myself to another army. Once I was in the camp of King Pinnes, I would have thrown myself into the waters of rebellion, and I would go where the current took me, because how else could I find the men who had killed my father? I could no more enter Siscia alone than I could return to the past, and so I gently squeezed Ahren’s flanks, and walked my horse forwards.

  There was no doubting who was in command. I saw a man who was powerful through the shoulders, his polished armour splendid – he oozed the confidence of a young warrior at war.

  He saw us coming and turned in the saddle. His eyes were bright, his short beard dark. He smiled. ‘Who are you, friend?’

  Thumper answered for us. ‘Pannonians, lord!’ he shouted. ‘We’ve come to kill some Romans!’

  ‘Then you’re in the right place!’ The rebel grinned. He moved his horse forwards, and offered me his hand.

  ‘My name is Ziva.’

  Chapter 19

  Ziva.

  When I heard the name I willed myself to smile, and shake the hand of the man whose love for torturing Romans was known across the land.

  Thumper beat me to it. He shook the cavalryman’s hand with such force that it was a wonder his arm didn’t come off.

  ‘Tell me, lord, you wouldn’t happen to have a cousin named Sagan, would you? No? You look so similar. What about Ony? Big fellow, if you know what I mean? His friends call him Horse.’

  Ziva retrieved his hand. Behind him, one of his troopers was laughing. ‘I know Horse!’

  ‘Not intimately, I hope!’ Thumper grinned, and the laughter spread through the cavalry. Before the older Pannonian could ask about any more relations, Ziva held up his hand.

  ‘We’re returning to the camp. Hand your weapons to one of my men, and join the rear of our formation. You’ll get them back once the king approves it.’

  ‘Yes sir!’ Thumper answered proudly, inventing his own salute.

  Cynbel nodded respectfully to Ziva. I did the same.

  And then, with hesitation, I took the blade that Arminius had given me, and handed it over to the Roman-killer’s men.

  I was defenceless. I was in the current of war.

  When Ziva rode away, we followed.

  * * *

  There were no siege lines to cross to reach Mons Alma. Tiberius was strangling this army from a distance, by blocking rivers and passes that were beyond sight.

  ‘You don’t need to stab a man in the heart for him to bleed to death,’ Cynbel told me.

  We followed in the dust of Ziva’s cavalry along well-worn tracks. We saw skinny children foraging for food and collecting firewood on the lower reaches of the slopes. I could see a palisade ahead, and no one stopped or challenged us as we rode through the open gate. I focused on the faces of the people inside the camp, but their eyes were fixed on Ziva – I saw pride there. Fear, too.

  The Pannonian cavalryman came to the horse pens. There were many, but nearly all were empty – King Pinnes had doubtless sent out as many mounted warriors as he could to scrounge, and to scout. Mons Alma had a wide, flat peak that was filled with the makeshift homes of an army on the mountain. There were thousands of tents and shelters, and the smell of open latrines was not something that even the mountain air could cure. I could hear the sound of hammers on wood, and looked towards the palisade, but the construction was coming from the centre of camp, and gave insight into Pinnes’s mind – he was building for winter.

  Along with Cynbel and Thumper I dismounted my horse.

  ‘I’ll find somewhere safe for them,’ Thumper was telling me. ‘And then we can find my boys!’

  But I was not listening to him.

  I felt eyes on me.

  I turned, and saw them.

  Ziva. Staring at me from across the pen. He was looking. Watching. Appraising.

  And then he walked.

  Sense told me to pull myself onto Ahren’s back and ride. Pride told me to stare. Desperation told me to smile.

  This was the man who tortured Romans for sport, but I had come willingly to this army for my own vengeance. He was not my enemy, I told myself. Not any more.

  ‘Sir,’ I said.

  He stopped two sword lengths away from me. That he kept that distance worried me. He had seen something.

  ‘You’re a young man,’ he began, not unpleasantly, and this was true. I was about his own age, and each of us had been lined by battle and hard service. Ziva looked around at a camp that teemed with thousands of such men. ‘Why were you not at the marshalling grounds?’

  The unsaid: why are you not already a part of this army?

  I thought to lie. Sickness? Travel? Trade? But he would see that lie in my scars. He would see it in my eyes.

  Thumper spoke for me.

  ‘Oh, he was serving with the Romans back then, lord.’

  Thumper’s face was genial and open, as though passing the time of day. Ziva’s became hooded and grim – it was the passing of a life that now interested him.

  ‘Seize him.’

  I took a step back into waiting arms. Ziva had sent his men around me, to my blindspots. He had smelled lies. Smelled a soldier.

  There was no
longer any need for him to stay out of the reach of a sword. He took a step closer to me. The smiling man I had first seen in a village was gone. What I saw before me now was the face of death.

  ‘You served Rome?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘You serve Rome.’

  ‘I do not.’

  ‘You are a spy.’

  ‘He is no spy, lord!’ Cynbel. ‘He is a deserter. His own family was murdered by men of the legions! My daughter! His love!’

  Ziva turned his cold eyes onto him. ‘You are not Roman.’ He said it as fact.

  ‘I am of Britannia, lord. I was a slave of Rome, and I beg you to take my word that this man is no servant of hers.’

  Ziva said nothing. A crowd was gathering. I felt it more than saw it, pressing closer, sensing blood.

  Ziva felt it too.

  ‘Did you kill Pannonians?’ he asked me.

  I said nothing.

  ‘He did not!’ Cynbel shouted.

  ‘I’m not asking you, old man.’ His eyes burned into me. ‘Did you fight us?’

  I gave him the truth. ‘I fought for my brothers.’

  I could feel the men that held me brace. They knew what Ziva would say before he said it. They knew that I would try and break free when I heard it.

  And they were right.

  ‘Crucify him.’

  * * *

  Much happened at once.

  Cynbel cried out in protest. Thumper looked dazed. The crowd cheered. I twisted and pulled and tried to break free.

  Ziva smiled.

  ‘That’s what you Romans do to deserters, isn’t it? Crucify them?’ He was enjoying himself. ‘You are either a spy in this camp, or a deserter of Rome. Either way, this is a just end for you.’

  ‘I came here to fight!’ My words hissed from between my teeth. ‘I came here to fight!’

  I saw them land. Ziva’s eyes narrowed.

  ‘I came here to fight!’

  The crowd reacted.

  ‘Let him fight!’

  ‘Kill him lord!’

  ‘Fight the Roman!’