Traitor

by Geraint Jones

  ‘Corvus!’ Miran spoke out in alarm. ‘Corvus, are you all right?’

  I could barely hear her. White sheets of pain shot through my skull.

  The headaches were back.

  ‘I’ll be all right,’ I gasped, sitting. Miran took my hand and squeezed. Then, when the burning pain had left me, the flame of shame roared up in its place. ‘I’m so embarrassed,’ I said honestly.

  ‘Why?’ she tutted. ‘What was it? Your head? Your breathing?’

  ‘Headache. I was hoping they’d left me.’

  ‘How long has it been like this?’ I could see the concern in her eyes. It made me feel like a child.

  ‘Since last summer,’ I answered grudgingly.

  ‘Did you hit your head?’

  I nodded. Her look told me to talk. ‘I was knocked out. Twice.’ The burning building. The battlefield.

  She let go of my hand and put hers against my forehead. She was the first woman to lay hands on me since Beatha.

  ‘You’re burning up,’ she said.

  Yes. From embarrassment.

  Miran stood. ‘Watch Borna,’ she told me. ‘Borna, watch him,’ she told the child.

  And then she was gone.

  I didn’t know what to say to a young boy. Evidently, this one didn’t know what to say to me either. That suited me, and we waited for the return of his mother in silence, with the child looking at me in a mix of curiosity and awe. I closed my eyes, and pretended that I hadn’t just been driven to my knees in front of his mother by a pissing headache.

  When Miran returned she had a cup in her hand. The potion smelled wicked but I didn’t hesitate to gulp it down. I’d already shown enough weakness. I couldn’t now show myself afraid of medicine.

  ‘What’s in that?’ I ask her, wiping my mouth.

  ‘Herbs, and not ones from a cliff face.’

  I half smiled at that memory, and looked at her crooked nose. It would always be a testament to her courage, and love of her son. ‘Just herbs?’

  ‘That, and the ground bladder of a young child.’

  My eyes went wide. She grinned in triumph. ‘I’m joking, Corvus. Joking! We are not the barbarians Rome thinks us to be.’

  ‘You haven’t heard Thumper fart,’ I said, and I was rewarded by a beautiful laugh. Even Borna giggled.

  And then, as quickly as it came, the humour in Miran’s eyes was gone. Instead of joy, I saw guilt.

  ‘We should go,’ she said cordially. ‘Thank you for playing with Borna, Corvus. I do appreciate it.’

  She took the boy’s hand.

  ‘You forgot your cup!’ I said after her.

  But they were gone.

  * * *

  Weeks came and went. Snows came and stayed. There was little movement in the camp. We were an army in hibernation.

  Only once did I see Miran. She came to enquire about my health. Her manner was stiff. I told myself that I wished she had not called on me at all, but that was a lie. The rest of that day was brighter for having seen her.

  I was so bored of my tent that I volunteered for duties, and I stood watch with Thumper on the palisade. There were worse things in life than listening to his stories about fighting. He had a lot of stories about fighting.

  ‘I killed a man with a punch, once.’

  ‘No you didn’t.’

  ‘Yes I did.’

  ‘Had you already stabbed him?’

  Thumper shrugged. ‘That’s beside the point. Did I tell you about the time I punched a bear?’

  ‘Yes.’

  And then he told me it again.

  During one shift at the palisade we got a visitor. King Pinnes was surprised when he came to check the sentries, and saw me standing watch with my Pannonian friend. ‘Corvus,’ he greeted me warmly, ‘come and see me tomorrow. I’ve missed our conversations. And who are you, sir?’ he asked.

  ‘Thumper, lord King.’

  ‘You are friends?’

  ‘Brothers, lord King,’ the Pannonian answered. ‘Lord King, would you like to hear about the time I punched a bear?’

  * * *

  The next day I went to the king’s hall as requested. It was near empty. Only a few of the royal bodyguard and Vuk were there. He seemed pleased to see me, and by that, I mean that he nodded in my direction, and greeted me by name.

  ‘How long does this last?’ I asked him, brushing snow from my cloak.

  ‘Not long enough,’ came the answer. It was Pinnes’s voice. The king emerged from the rooms at the end of his hall. ‘If we had the supplies then I would want this winter to last for a thousand years, if it kept the Romans in their camps.’

  ‘But we don’t have the supplies,’ I said simply.

  ‘No, Corvus. We don’t. Let’s take a walk.’

  I was reluctant to leave the well-made hall, but he was a king, after all, and so I followed him outside, Vuk trailing us at a distance. Our feet crunched the soft snow, though parts of the camp were turning to muddy slush – there was a thaw in the air. Slight, but definite. When winter ended, and the paths and tracks of the country firmed up, Tiberius and his army would march.

  ‘Corvus,’ Pinnes asked me wistfully, ‘could there be such a thing as peace with Rome?’

  ‘What do you mean, lord?’

  ‘Is it even possible? Peace? There has to be an end to this war, one way or another. Can that be one agreed upon by the two sides, or must it be conquest of one over the other?’

  I said nothing for a moment. We both knew that, while a victory in the field against Rome was not impossible, the idea of the rebels conquering Roman lands was now a ridiculous one. They’d had their chance to march on Italia and they had been stopped by half a legion – my legion. Since then, Tiberius had arrived with a huge army, and Germanicus had brought a new force from Italia itself. The rebels held a slight advantage in numbers but, if this camp at Mons Alma was anything to go by, they were becoming skinny, weak, and did not have the experience or training of the men that Tiberius could put in the field.

  I knew what King Pinnes wanted. I knew what all the rebels wanted – autonomy from Rome. The right to govern themselves, and be left in peace.

  It was nothing but a dream.

  ‘Rome will not walk away from Pannonia and Dalmatia,’ I told him simply. ‘If you – we – can win a decisive victory, then you can sue for terms, and perhaps save the lives of yourself and your commanders, and avoid slavery for your people, but Rome will never allow you to rule yourselves. There is no escaping its yoke. The best you can hope for is assimilation.’

  ‘We tried that,’ Pinnes said with a sad smile. ‘It didn’t fit us very well.’

  I said nothing.

  ‘The problem, Corvus, is that Rome won’t simply allow us to live on our own terms. As you say, if we could win a decisive victory we could potentially sue for peace, but what does that peace look like? Rome will demand Pannonian men to fight for their army, and next year my boys will be dying in Germania, or wherever else the Empire decides to send them. Our war here would be over, but another would rise in its place.’

  I held my silence.

  ‘They want blood, Corvus. They want our blood, on their terms.’ There was a grim set to the king’s face. ‘I would have it on ours.’

  I said nothing. We had walked up the rise to the high point of the camp. Pinnes looked back over the tents and shacks of his army. Although there were nearly fifty thousand men on Mons Alma, it was not an inspiring sight. The rebels clung to the mountain like snow-dusted limpets.

  The king sighed. ‘All I wanted was to grow old, fat, and put babies into a beautiful woman. Was that too much to ask, Corvus?’ There was a smile on his lips. A smile at the irony of life.

  There was no heat in his voice, only melancholy. ‘Why can’t these bastards in their palaces just keep to themselves, Corvus? Why can’t they just leave us alone?’

  I knew the answer. ‘For the glory of Rome,’ I told him.

  ‘Yes,’ the king laughed bitterly, ‘for the glo
ry of Rome.’

  Chapter 33

  In the tent I shared with Thumper I sat sullen and miserable. My friend decided that he was a doctor, and diagnosed me.

  ‘You’ve caught a fever,’ he explained. ‘Vagina fever.’

  ‘Can’t you just tell me the bloody bear story?’

  ‘No, grumpy arse. Uncle Thumper knows a few things about women, and I know a few things about what they do to a young man’s head. You might look like you got dragged across these mountains by your hair, but you’re still a young bloke beneath those scars, and young blokes’ brains boil when they get a scent of pretty woman.’

  ‘You are a sage, Thumper,’ I answered petulantly, though the truth was that he was right. Miran was on my mind, a lot.

  ‘Look,’ Thumper consoled me. ‘There’s worse things to think about.’

  In that he was correct. Better to torture myself over a woman out of reach than the betrayal of my oldest friend.

  ‘You know what you need? A good bloody fight.’

  He wasn’t wrong. If there was one place for a man to lose himself, it was in battle. ‘I expect that we’ll get one before too long,’ I told him.

  The snow was melting. The camp was becoming a quagmire of mud and slush. It clung to everything. Thumper’s boots had brought half of it into my tent, but the man seemed oblivious to dirt.

  I took a long look at him. He had aged since we’d first met. The flesh of his cheeks had been eaten away by hunger. He was gaunt. We were all gaunt.

  ‘We need to fight while we still can.’

  Thumper nodded at that. He was full of confidence for victory. I was not, but what choice was there? The army was starving. Something had to change.

  ‘Let’s take a walk,’ I said, hit by a desire to see the state of the army.

  Thumper followed me out of the tent. The air was cold beneath low cloud. There looked to be rain on the horizon. It would turn what was already a muddy camp into a bog. People despair in such conditions. Cold is hard, but filth is harder.

  We walked through the camp in silence, or as silently as it was possible for Thumper to walk. He said hello to everyone we passed. They looked listless and hungry. I did not see anyone cheerful. Even the children were quiet.

  I didn’t believe the rebels could win in open battle against Tiberius’s forces, but did they have a choice other than to try? As Miran had predicted, the winter of the region had tried to kill its own people, and now they were wretched.

  Suddenly, there were shouts. My heart beat faster as I imagined a Roman army had snuck onto the slopes and was closing to attack, but my fears were misplaced – these were cries of excitement. They were coming from the gates.

  I lead Thumper towards them. We were not the only pair drawn out of our misery. A crowd was forming. I was hit by a memory, as though I was on the outside looking in at the day we were brought into the camp.

  I saw men on horses. One was Ziva.

  That confirmed it.

  ‘They have prisoners.’

  Thumper hesitated. ‘Maybe we should go back to the tent?’

  But I walked onwards and pushed my way to the front of the crowd. Ziva was holding the end of a rope. It was tied to the necks of four filthy prisoners.

  Legionaries.

  ‘Corvus, my friend,’ Ziva said with acid humour, ‘I was hoping you would join us.’

  ‘Ziva,’ I replied for the sake of the king, and the battles we must surely fight.

  ‘These are old friends of yours,’ he grinned, ‘Eighth Legion.’

  My stomach turned.

  ‘We ambushed these men as they attempted to raid one of our villages,’ the rebel cavalry commander announced, loud enough so that all could hear. ‘They came to kill your countrymen! Look at them now!’

  The crowd jeered. A lump of slush hit one of the captives in the face. Ziva laughed.

  ‘Good shot!’ Then he was looking at me. ‘These men have something they would like to say to you, Corvus.’

  I turned to them. I was relieved that I didn’t know their faces, but my relief stopped there. These men had already been tortured. I saw the signs of it now. Three were shaking with terror. The ears had been cut from one. Only one of the four retained his defiance.

  ‘Well,’ Ziva spoke to him, ‘tell Corvus what you told me.’

  There was hate in the Roman’s eyes. So much hate. ‘You will pay for what you did!’ he suddenly screamed at me. ‘You will pay, traitor!’

  Ziva jerked back on the rope to silence him. ‘Tiberius’s army knows that it was you who led the raid to steal the pay chests,’ he informed me with a smile. A smile that let me know it had been him who sent that truth into the Roman army.

  I felt something hit my cheek. I wiped it away, and looked at my fingers.

  The Roman had spat at me.

  His grin was dark and grim. He had defiance. He had a message. ‘The Eighth Legion prays for the day that you join your father.’

  What happened next happened quickly. I took two steps and dropped the man with a punch before the crowd could gasp. The prisoner fell, the rope tightening around his neck as he dropped below the level of the men he was tied to.

  I got to my knees and gripped his face. Above me I could hear Ziva’s happy cries. ‘Yes, Corvus! Yes!’

  Something had snapped in me. A reserve had been broken. Corvus the killer had come to the surface.

  I squeezed the soldier’s face. ‘Who were the men who killed my father? Give me their names! Who killed my father?’

  He would not speak. I hit him. ‘Who were the men who killed my father?’

  ‘Corvus!’ I heard. ‘Corvus!’ I turned.

  Ziva was holding a dagger out for me. ‘Take this.’ His eyes were alive. ‘Get your answers!’

  The joy I saw in him sickened me. At once, my anger fell away.

  I was ashamed.

  I let go of the Roman and stood back.

  ‘Who killed my father?’ I asked him in a whisper.

  The soldier’s eyes were set.

  ‘Heroes,’ he defied me. ‘Heroes!’

  My hands shook by my side.

  ‘Corvus. Corvus!’ Ziva was speaking. ‘If you want answers, get answers!’ Something in his voice made me look at him. ‘He has your answers, Corvus. Ask him again,’ he pushed, holding out the dagger. ‘Go on! Do it! Do it!’

  Instead I turned my back, and walked away. The crowd parted before me, sensing I was kept from violence by a hair’s width.

  A voice called after me. Cracked and broken. ‘You can’t run forever, traitor!’ the prisoner shouted. ‘The legions are marching! Do you hear me, traitor? The legions are marching!’

  I walked away. Ziva laughed.

  That night, I heard the screams of dying Romans.

  Chapter 34

  In the morning Vuk came to my tent. He had something for me. A folded piece of paper.

  ‘From Ziva,’ he said.

  I didn’t open it.

  ‘He says you’d want what’s written there.’ The bodyguard shrugged. ‘Four names, he said.’

  A shudder of sickness ran through my body. The thought of opening the paper and seeing the confirmation of what I feared made me want to vomit. Instead I placed the parchment inside a box of scrolls.

  ‘It will keep,’ I told Vuk as I felt his gaze.

  Whatever was in there, it would keep.

  ‘Come,’ he said then. ‘The legions are marching.’

  * * *

  We gathered in the king’s hall.

  There were two dozen of us, the king’s most loyal and trusted followers. One of those men saw me and smiled.

  ‘Did you get my letter?’ Ziva asked.

  His eyes were brilliant. There was nothing that fired his heart like the pain of others.

  I ignored him, instead turning my attention towards the king, who was still in quiet discussion with two mud-splattered men whom I took to be scouts. The look on the king’s face was that of a proud father. He had his hands on o
ne of the men’s arms. I didn’t hear the words that Pinnes gave the scouts once they had delivered their report, but they left the room with pride and purpose.

  ‘Gentlemen!’ the king addressed us all. ‘Fine news!’

  We waited to hear it. Pinnes surveyed us. A smile played at his lips. He loved the men before him.

  ‘The Romans are marching,’ he told us, as though it were the greatest thing in the world. Could anyone else see the worry behind his eyes? Had anyone else heard his fears – that the legions could not be beaten in open battle?

  ‘Tiberius has left Siscia, lord King?’ asked a grizzled infantry commander.

  ‘No. Even better. Tell them, Ziva. It was you and your men who brought us the first reports, and the prisoners.’

  Ziva showed no little pride. His shoulders and spine grew an inch. ‘Severus, governor of Moesia, is marching from the east to join up with Tiberius at Siscia.’

  That news sent a ripple through the room.

  ‘How many men?’ a voice asked.

  ‘Five legions, and as many men again in auxiliaries.’ These words came from the king. ‘Severus marches with fifty thousand.’

  There was silence, and for good reason. If Severus could combine his army with the force that Tiberius had at Siscia, it would be the biggest gathering of Roman might since the civil wars.

  Pinnes gave his men a moment to come to that conclusion in their own heads.

  ‘We must intercept Severus on the road,’ he told his commanders then. None objected. ‘We must ensure that his army never reaches Tiberius.’

  I looked around the lined faces of those assembled in the king’s hall. The Pannonians were keen for a chance to fight, but the thought of ten legions or more joining forces against them was a staggering one. What hope would there be for the rebellion in the face of such odds? What hope for a man’s life? His children’s?

  I realised that King Pinnes was staying silent so that his men could consider such a grim reality. He didn’t need to fire them up with speeches and rhetoric. He just had to give them a moment to recognise the truth: fail to stop Severus and you will die, your women will be raped, and your children will be slaves.