Traitor

by Geraint Jones

  ‘Who’s Thumper?’ King Pinnes asked me.

  I sat up quickly. ‘Lord King.’

  ‘Who’s Thumper?’ he asked again.

  ‘A friend, lord.’

  He was sitting cross-legged in the tent. He had a scroll in his hand. One of The Gallic Wars.

  ‘You read this?’

  ‘Some.’ I nodded as I pushed myself up. ‘I need to piss, lord King.’

  ‘Then piss. I’ll be here.’

  I stepped outside into darkness. I had no idea what hour it was. I shuddered in the cold as I pissed, rubbed Ahren’s nose, then ducked back within.

  ‘I’ve had my men feed and water your horse,’ the king told me, sensing my hesitation. ‘Sit, Corvus, tell me all about how you made me a rich man.’

  There was mirth in his smile. The coins would make a difference to his campaign, but they would soon be spent.

  I sat and faced the man who opposed Rome, and studied him a moment. Beneath the smile there was the weight of a leader with lives in his hands. He hid it well, but the eyes never lie.

  ‘Going to Siscia…’ I said without heat. ‘It was a suicide mission.’

  The king did not deny it. ‘It was. Or as near to it as to make no difference.’

  I couldn’t hate him for that. After all, he’d given me my chance to leave.

  ‘You’re not angry at me?’

  I shrugged. ‘It’s war.’

  But he could see that I was holding something back.

  ‘Please speak, Corvus. Openly.’

  And so I spoke. Openly. ‘Did your men know? That they were going there to die?’

  ‘It wasn’t certain they would die,’ Pinnes replied. ‘Most of you came home.’

  ‘Most of us.’

  ‘But yes. I told them they would likely die, and they went willingly. They were all volunteers, picked by Vuk out of dozens of my best men who wanted to go. Haven’t you fought against the odds before?’ Pinnes smiled. ‘There’s still a part of you that thinks of us as the enemy. No need to deny it, my friend, it’s quite natural, and it must be a surprise of sorts to see that other armies have men just as noble and brave as your brothers in the legion.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of it that way,’ I admitted. He was right.

  ‘I offered my men a chance to strike at Rome,’ the king told me with no little amount of pride. ‘I offered them a chance to anger and shame the Empire that enslaved their fathers, and made war on their children. That’s what I offered them, Corvus.’

  ‘That is the kind of opportunity a man takes,’ I answered honestly.

  ‘It is,’ Pinnes nodded deeply. ‘It is, Corvus.’ I knew that it would be a chance that the king would take himself, but his responsibility was too great. He was a man with an army, but how much choice did he have in his life?

  ‘Tell me, Corvus,’ the king interrupted my thoughts, ‘how did my men look, at the end? Vuk has told me how they died. He told me you were there. How did they look?’

  I thought back to the faces of the two men who had unbarred the gate for us. They had watched us ride clear before sealing themselves inside to buy us the time to escape. I remembered them shouting, ‘For Pannonia! For King Pinnes!’

  ‘Proud,’ I told the man that they had died for. ‘They looked proud.’

  He put a hand on my shoulder. ‘Then we shall not pity them, Corvus. They died with purpose and honour. Two things that most men will never know.’

  The king got to his feet then. ‘I am glad to see you well. I didn’t ever doubt that you would come back to us.’ He held up the box of scrolls. ‘May I borrow this?’

  ‘Please. It was a gift from Cynbel. I’m sure he would be honoured to know it was in your hands.’

  Pinnes nodded thanks.

  ‘Sleep while you can, Corvus,’ he said, assuming the stoic mask of the king. ‘We are expecting visitors.’

  Chapter 31

  Three days later the visitors arrived. They came on horses, four dozen of them, and walked them to the king’s hall.

  ‘Who are they?’ I asked Thumper as we dined on thin soup in my tent.

  ‘No idea,’ he admitted. ‘They came in the dark before dawn.’

  It was good to be reunited with my friend. ‘I’ll miss Cynbel,’ he had told me, ‘but, gods willing, I will see him in the afterlife.’

  Of Miran and Borna I had seen no sign. That disappointed me, an emotion I tried to bury.

  ‘Are you all right, lad?’ Thumper asked me.

  He asked me that a lot.

  ‘I miss Cynbel.’ Which though true, was not the truth he was seeking.

  Not long later one of the royal bodyguards pulled back the flap to my tent. Cold air rushed in.

  So, too, did a summons to the king.

  * * *

  The king’s hall was full.

  The stink of men, their noise and the heat of their bodies filled the place. After weeks in the snow and days in my tent it was uncomfortable, and I felt myself break out in a sweat. There must be fifty men inside. I expected to be lost to the assembly, but I felt one set of eyes on me through the crowd.

  Ziva.

  The snake had returned to camp. He stared. I met his look. There was no slithering smile on his face. There was nothing. His look was cold, blank and dead.

  And then Vuk saw me. His eyes were as dark and hooded as ever, but there was a grin on his face.

  ‘Here’s the man that brought us the coins!’ he boomed across the hall, and all heads turned my way. ‘Three cheers for Corvus!’

  There is not much that man loves more than coin, except the ale and the women that he buys with it, and the three cheers crashed through the hall like two shield walls meeting on the battlefield.

  Vuk enjoyed that. He joined me by my side, and we spoke quietly. ‘Come forward to the king,’ he said.

  ‘You made them cheer because you knew I’d hate it, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ the usually grim man snorted. ‘You should have seen your face.’

  I was glad to see that look, and what it meant. Our long road together in the snow – no matter how silent – had formed a bond between us. We were comrades, I realised. It was not the bond I had in the Eighth, but it was a comradeship nonetheless.

  Men moved aside for us. They were all rebels, I guessed, and I could feel what was inside the looks that they gave me: so this is Corvus. Corvus the Deserter. Corvus the Traitor.

  When I reached the front of the hall I saw that there was a man seated beside the king, who nodded in greeting when he saw me. The stranger was a mountain of man, a head taller than Pinnes, with a strong beard and close-cropped hair. In the heat of the hall he had stripped down to an undershirt that was tight across shoulders and arms thick with muscle. He was as close to a god as I had ever seen, and the blazing pits of his eyes fixed onto me.

  ‘Is this the Roman turd?’

  The question was directed to Pinnes. All the others were silent. Even Ziva, whose eyes cut into me from his position of favour close to the king.

  Pinnes said nothing. I took that as a sign that I was to speak for myself.

  ‘I’m no Roman,’ I addressed the warrior in the chair, for surely there could be no other vocation for such a man. ‘I was born and raised in Iadar,’ I said in the local tongue. ‘I am Dalmatian.’

  He found this funny. So did many others in the room.

  ‘You might have grown up in Dalmatia, but that doesn’t make you Dalmatian. You are a Roman. And a Roman soldier at that.’ The hostility came from him in waves, like heat from a furnace. I felt it at my back, too. I felt it all around me. Men like coin, but that is soon forgotten when they are confronted with a man who they blame for enslaving their fathers, raping their wives, and killing their children.

  I had only one answer to give in my defence.

  ‘I’m here, aren’t I?’

  ‘He is!’ came loudly from my right. It was Vuk’s voice, rising in my defence. King Pinnes silenced him with a fatherly look.


  My words angered the big man in the chair. I knew that, because an ugly scar on his head began growing brighter as his blood came up.

  ‘You are here,’ he growled, ‘and your head would be on a spike if you were not the king’s pup.’

  He spat out the last word. Ziva’s face finally gave way to a broad smile. Others in the hall were laughing. Laughing at the Roman.

  Enough. I had had enough.

  I opened my mouth to speak – to ask this bastard what more I needed to do to show them I was an enemy of Rome – but the king saw the outburst forming, and stood calmly.

  ‘If Corvus is a pup, Bato, then he is a very loyal and accomplished one.’ He smiled openly. ‘Most puppies can barely fetch a stick. Corvus fetched three chests of Roman coins.’

  The assembly liked that, and roared in laughter. Ziva and Bato did not see the funny side.

  I looked again at the bigger man – so this was the leader of the Dalmatian rebels.

  ‘Bato,’ the king went on, ‘I can understand your hesitation in accepting a man who served Rome, but perhaps you could be persuaded to accept him if he offered you a gift?’

  Bato looked me up and down. ‘His head would do nicely.’

  More laughter. Then, at a signal, two of the king’s bodyguards walked out with a chest, and set it down at Bato’s feet.

  ‘To our allies,’ Pinnes announced with a shallow bow. ‘Courtesy of myself, my tribe, my men, and…’ I saw him smile, ‘Corvus.’

  Bato hesitated. He heard what the king was saying without saying it. By accepting this gift, he would be accepting me – or at least, my presence in the rebel ranks.

  Ziva was looking at Bato. I could see an edge of strain around his jaw. He didn’t want the Dalmatian leader to take it.

  But Bato could not resist the prize at his feet. He pulled open the lid of the chest, revealing small sacks full of money. He pulled one open, withdrew a single coin, and dropped the rest back into the chest. They hit with a satisfying weight.

  No one spoke as Bato turned the coin over in his massive hand, and stared so hard at it that I wondered if the metal would melt.

  ‘You fought for this man,’ Bato began after a moment, ‘and now you steal from him?’ He was staring at the likeness of the Emperor Augustus, minted onto the coin.

  ‘I fought for my brothers,’ I corrected him.

  ‘And he didn’t steal, Bato,’ Pinnes added diplomatically. ‘That coin comes from unjust taxes levied by Rome. Can you steal from a thief?’ The king shook his head. ‘Corvus simply helped return the money to its rightful owners.’ His implication was clear – one of those rightful owners was Bato.

  The big Dalmatian looked up from the coin, and at me. His eyes were still dangerous. This was the man who we’d defeated with half a legion. His pride was hurt, and in me there was a chance to strike back at an enemy who bested him.

  ‘Are you one of the cowards who stabbed my men in the back as they slept?’

  I said nothing. My eyes said everything.

  Bato laughed. It was the least humorous sound I had ever heard.

  ‘Catch, puppy.’

  He flicked the coin to me. The weight of his toss was perfect. I had only to open and close my palm to catch it.

  ‘You look like shit, Roman. Buy yourself a whore and some wine.’

  I couldn’t help myself. I saw Pinnes suppress a groan as I spoke.

  ‘My name is Corvus.’

  Bato found that amusing. ‘Very well. Buy yourself a whore and some wine, Corvus the Traitor.’

  I bristled, but said nothing. What could I say? It was the truth.

  The king stepped forwards. ‘I think everyone here deserves some wine,’ he said with a look to his servants. ‘And then,’ his eyes locked onto mine, ‘we will decide how we are going to kill Tiberius, and bring Rome to her knees.’

  Part Four

  Chapter 32

  Little of substance then passed in the council between Bato, King Pinnes and their commanders. At least, little that I heard. There were a lot of boasts about how they would slaughter Romans, and send them back to Italia with their tails between their legs, but little of tactics. I imagined that those discussions happened behind closed doors, and that the packed assembly in the hall was simply Pinnes’s plan to raise morale. After being the centre of attention I was soon forgotten, and found myself slowly muscled backwards by Pannonian and Dalmatian commanders anxious to be close to their leaders. Once I realised I was close to the door and would not be missed, I made an excuse that was listened to by no one, then stepped outside into the cold.

  There was snow on the ground, but none in the air. That didn’t stop a ball of it hitting me on the side of the head as I walked to my tent.

  I turned sharply, ready to speak sharper still, but I held my tongue when I saw who was behind the throw.

  Young Borna. He was smiling widely.

  His mother was not.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ I asked, because her look was not that of a mother embarrassed at her son’s actions. It was the look of one worried over the health of their kin.

  ‘Corvus,’ she greeted me. Then, after a moment, she said it. ‘I was hoping my husband would have come with Bato.’

  I tried to hide the pang of disappointment at the mention of that lucky man.

  ‘He serves Bato,’ Miran added, and she could see that I didn’t understand. If her husband was with Bato, then why was she here, in the Pannonian camp?

  I saw worry in Miran’s fair eyes. She pulled her young son close to her, and smiled bravely. ‘We are hostages, Corvus.’

  * * *

  That day I learned a lot from Miran. She would not accompany me to my tent, not without Thumper and Cynbel, for fear of what people might say. She was the wife of a Dalmatian nobleman, and one of two dozen hostages given to King Pinnes to secure the alliance between the rebel groups. Suddenly, I remembered the king asking me about leaving the camp, and asking me not to do it again. It was not because I had left that he had said it.

  It was because I had left with a hostage.

  ‘This was Ziva’s idea?’ I asked as we stood in the cold.

  She shook her head. ‘The king’s.’

  I didn’t know why I was surprised. Pinnes was a ruler, and rulers took hostages to ensure the good behaviour and continued cooperation of their allies. As a nobleman’s son, Borna had worth. He was a bargaining chip in this war.

  ‘You’re treated well, though?’

  Miran said nothing for a moment. ‘You should go. If Bato’s men see me talking to you, they’ll start to gossip.’

  She didn’t need to explain to me why that was to be avoided – noblemen become as jealous of rumour as any other man.

  I found my courage. ‘Come and see me soon,’ I said, then lost it. ‘With Borna, I mean.’

  Miran shook her head. ‘You should go.’

  * * *

  I sat sullenly in my tent. I was not summoned again to the councils, which lasted three days. Given that I was still drawing breath, it appeared as though I was tolerated by Bato, but I was certainly not trusted by him. I tried to do as Cynbel had once advised me, and lose myself in books, but it is hard when there is cold in your bones, and a woman in your head, and I paid little attention to what was in front of me.

  Instead I thought of Miran.

  With a bitter laugh at myself, I realised that it was seeing her look for her husband that had shaken me more than learning that she was a hostage. It had been there, I could see now, in the corners of my mind – the thought of our reunion, and what could come after.

  But she was a hostage. She was married.

  ‘You can pretend I’m her, if you like?’ Thumper offered when I told him. ‘I won’t tell,’ he teased, bursting into laughter.

  ‘I’ll decline, Thumper, but thank you as always for your kindness.’

  The old rebel winked. ‘Whatever happens in the war, stays in the war,’ he said sagely. ‘Except the pox. The pox will follow you h
ome.’

  ‘So I hear.’

  ‘Where do you think Cynbel is by now?’

  The thought of my old friend and tutor brought warmth to my heart, and fear to my mind. Vuk’s two men had accompanied the Briton to the edge of Pannonia, and stayed with Cynbel until he left with a trade caravan bound for northern Gaul, but much of his journey was a great unknown.

  ‘I’m not sure. He’ll need to find a port, and a ship eventually, but where that would be now I don’t know. It depends on how many stops they make, and how long they make them for, I suppose.’ I hadn’t ever thought much about trade caravans, or even trade, for that matter. My business had been war.

  ‘Tell me about the raid?’ Thumper asked as if on cue. He did so every day, and every day I shook my head. ‘Go on, I love a good war story.’

  I held out one of Cynbel’s scrolls. ‘Then read this.’

  ‘I can’t,’ Thumper shrugged. ‘Never read a word in my life.’

  I felt a pang of guilt for my assumption. My father and Cynbel had given me a gift rarely given to others. ‘I can help you, if you like?’ But Thumper shook his head.

  ‘Why do I need to write when I’ve got a mouth to speak? Now if you won’t tell me your own stories, you miserable arse, then read me what’s on that scroll.’

  I couldn’t help a smile, and opened the paper. I knew what Thumper was doing – distracting me from my melancholy.

  ‘Thank you,’ I told him.

  ‘You’re welcome.’ My friend grinned. ‘Now read.’

  * * *

  By fortune, I was alone on the day when Miran finally returned to my tent. The Dalmatians had gone, and darkness had come, bringing her with it. My blood pumped faster for a moment, but then I realised that she had Borna in tow.

  ‘He wanted to see you,’ she said. ‘He wants to play.’

  He wasn’t the only one – I couldn’t deny a desire for her now – but he was the only one who would get his way. If Cynbel could see me he would no doubt have another clever quip about how a beautiful woman has a way of changing a man’s mind about children, and so there I was, parrying Borna’s childish strokes when, all of a sudden, I was almost driven to my knees.