by Ben Kane
‘Yes, sir. T-thank you, sir.’ Tullus tripped over the words.
‘My clemency is not altogether altruistic. The emperor, may the gods bless him, is soon to appoint me as governor of the province of Tres Galliae and Germania. I will have need of good soldiers. Solid officers, like you.’ As Tullus struggled to contain his surprise and delight, Germanicus continued, ‘The humiliations heaped upon us by Arminius have not been forgotten – no, indeed. I mean to lead my legions over the river, to retake all that was lost. I refer not just to territory and riches, but to the three eagles. Will you aid me in this? Will you see that Rome has its vengeance?’
‘It would be my honour, sir.’ Tullus could hear Fenestela growling in agreement.
‘Good.’ Germanicus clapped him on the shoulder. ‘I will seek you out on my arrival at the frontier. Best return to your duties with the Fifth before too long, eh?’
‘Of course, sir.’ Tullus watched with astonishment as Germanicus called for his horse and rode away. The two Praetorians followed.
Tullus’ knees were shaking. He sat down on a shop doorstep while Fenestela all but danced before him. ‘Who’d have expected that, eh?’
‘Aye,’ said Tullus, wondering how one moment an ignominious death could beckon, and the next he could be praised by the emperor’s step-grandson and then handed an opportunity to retrieve his honour.
Truly, the gods were smiling on him this day. Tullus had a good feeling that they would continue to do so during his quest for vengeance, and his hunt for his old legion’s eagle.
PART ONE
Late Summer, AD 14
Near the town of Ara Ubiorum
The German Frontier
Chapter I
IT WAS LATE summer on the German frontier, and four of the local legions – the First, the Fifth, the Twentieth and the Twenty-First – were gathered in a vast temporary camp near the town of Ara Ubiorum. After an afternoon spent with his men on the windswept parade ground outside the encampment, Tullus made his way to the Net and Trident, his favourite drinking hole in the village of tents that had sprung up nearby. Training manoeuvres and planning for the year ahead had brought half of the province’s legions to the same place, not far from the border town of Ara Ubiorum. As was usual, a host of followers-on – tradesmen of every kind, innkeepers, food-sellers, whores, soothsayers and more – had descended soon after, keen for the business offered by upwards of sixteen thousand legionaries.
Tullus’ preferred spot in the Net and Trident had been taken when he’d arrived, dry-throated and tired. Without making a fuss – the table at the back wasn’t his property – he had taken a seat close by. He liked the ‘inn’ because its tent was small, hard to find, and close to a good brothel. Its land-lord was a retired soldier, an ex-optio; he took no nonsense from drunk customers yet retained a wicked sense of humour. The wine was of decent quality, and the food wasn’t bad either.
Prices for both were higher than what was comfortable for ordinary soldiers, so most of its customers were officers. After a lifetime in the legions, that suited Tullus down to the ground. He loved his men, even the reprobates in the century he’d commanded for the last five years, but when his duties were done, he liked to be able to relax. To say things that he couldn’t if ordinary legionaries were about.
Without company at first, he fell to brooding. Things weren’t the same as they had been before, in the Eighteenth. How could they be? Tullus had served in it for a decade and a half, had become commander of the Second Cohort, one of the most senior centurions in the entire legion. Curse it, he’d known every centurion and most junior officers in the Eighteenth by name. I was a respected man, he thought, and now I’m just a rank-and-file centurion in the Seventh Cohort of a legion I barely know. The fucking Seventh! The majority of the legion’s centurions were men ten years younger than he, or more. It was especially galling that these almost-youths were also of superior rank.
A good number of these centurions were courteous enough to Tullus, but there was a group of about a dozen who had taken against him from the start. He had come to recognise all too well their superior looks and snide comments. It went against the grain, but he tended to avoid confrontation with them where possible. There were only so many fights left in him, and Tullus wanted to keep them for those upon whom he wanted revenge – the real enemy – Arminius and the German tribes.
The future appeared promising in that regard. Germanicus was governor now, as he’d promised. His need to supervise a new census throughout the vast province meant that there had been no campaign into Germania this year, but in the spring, things would change. According to the camp gossip Tullus had heard, the force to cross the Rhenus would be large – up to eight legions – and there would be little quarter offered to the empire’s foes.
Tullus drained his beaker in one swallow, taking comfort from the warm glow as the wine ran down to his stomach. The jug he’d bought was empty too, so he looked about for a waitress.
First to pass him was a skinny woman with awful teeth whose name he could never recall. ‘More wine,’ said Tullus.
‘Yes, sir.’ She took the vessel without even slowing.
Best take it easy, Tullus decided as she vanished in the direction of the bar. It could be a long night. ‘Water it down, four parts to one,’ he called out.
She turned, raised an eyebrow, but returned with a jug of dilute wine.
Time passed. Several centurions and optiones from the Sixth Cohort came in, and invited Tullus to their table. After an hour of pleasant conversation, his decision to moderate his intake of wine had been forgotten. He’d had at least another jug, and was thinking that it was time to order another. Fenestela’s arrival was most opportune, therefore. ‘My round,’ he insisted.
Tullus raised his hands. ‘Be my guest.’
Fenestela came back with three jugs. ‘The place is getting crowded,’ he explained. ‘It saves having to queue up.’ He slid one down the table, towards the other officers, and parked the others between him and Tullus.
They toasted one another, and drank. ‘May Germanicus lead us to victory, and to recovering the lost eagles,’ said Tullus, and clinked his cup off Fenestela’s again. ‘May we also kill or take Arminius.’
‘Aye. To the spring campaign.’
They drank again.
‘Happy with the men?’ asked Tullus. He’d left Fenestela to march his soldiers back to the camp, and to oversee their last duties of the day.
‘I am. They were complaining about the length of training, and how they wanted hot baths, not cold river water, to clean up in. The usual stuff. The conscripts were whingeing the most.’
‘Nothing changes,’ said Tullus with a chuckle.
‘Piso volunteered for sentry duty again.’
‘Thank the gods that we managed to keep him with us, and Vitellius.’ The two were a little like him and Fenestela, thought Tullus, complete physical opposites. Where Piso was tall and good-humoured, Vitellius was short and acerbic. That didn’t stop them being the best of friends, and excellent soldiers.
‘They’re both good men.’
‘That’s certain.’ After the ambush, Tullus would have liked to have held on to every legionary from his original unit, but that wasn’t the way the army worked. If it hadn’t been for Caedicius, the former camp prefect of Aliso, now a good friend, Tullus would have retained none of his original command. Not even Fenestela. Tullus pushed away the thought. He did have Fenestela, and Piso and Vitellius. That counted more than his demotion.
The rest of his soldiers weren’t a bad bunch, even if some of them – in particular the conscripts – weren’t well suited to military life. The conscripts had been forced into the army during the widespread panic in the months after Arminius’ ambush, when the emperor’s initial request for volunteers to join the army had met with a poor response. Augustus’ forcible draft had resulted in thousands of unwilling citizens joining the Rhenus legions. Every unit had a certain number of them, and some more than oth
ers. Tullus was grateful that his century had only twenty-five or so.
His bladder twinged. ‘I’ll be back,’ he said to Fenestela. ‘Keep my seat.’
Upon his return, Tullus was irritated by the sight, two tables over from his, of four centurions from the Second Cohort and a couple from the First, along with an assortment of junior officers from their units. It wasn’t correct to call them his enemies. Relations between them weren’t that bad. Adversaries perhaps, Tullus decided. He sat down opposite Fenestela, who had his back to them. ‘Have you seen—’ he began.
‘Aye,’ replied Fenestela, scowling. ‘The cocksuckers didn’t notice me, though.’
‘Nor me.’ That was the best way, thought Tullus, keeping his head down. He and Fenestela couldn’t fight ten men, never mind the fact that such behaviour was considered unacceptable for centurions. He had no desire to end his career in a lower-ranking cohort, or even in the ranks.
‘Listen to what they’re saying.’
Tullus pricked his ears. As was natural, there was a lot of background noise: loud conversations, singing, an occasional shout, and bursts of laughter. It was fortunate that the two junior officers between their table and that of the group of centurions were talking in whispers. Like as not, they’re gossiping about which whorehouse to visit, thought Tullus.
The centurions appeared to be discussing the next year’s campaign. ‘It’ll be good to get out of camp, and teach the German savages a lesson. They’ve been let away with it for too long,’ declared Flavoleius Cordus, a podgy-faced man with deep-set eyes. He was the senior centurion in the Second Cohort, which had been Tullus’ position in the Eighteenth. That rankled enough, not least because Cordus was a good officer, and popular in the legion. He was also fond of reminding Tullus that – in his mind at least – it hadn’t been right to allow some of Varus’ disgraced soldiers into the Alaudae.
‘We’ll make a better fist of it than Varus,’ said Castricius Victor, ranking centurion of the Third Cohort, and Cordus’ main henchman. Built like an ox, with the temperament of a wild bull, he was feared in equal measure by his soldiers and junior officers. He was also an arrogant, loud-mouthed boor. In Tullus’ opinion, his physical size and bravery had to be the reason he’d been promoted to the centurionate. ‘Not that that would be hard,’ Victor added with a snort.
There was a rumble of agreement, especially from the junior officers at the table: optiones, signiferi and tesserarii.
‘I’d like to see the tribes try to surprise us,’ said Cordus. ‘The Seventeenth, Eighteenth and Nineteenth must have been sleepwalking to have been ambushed the way they were.’
Their comments revealed how little understanding men had of the massacre in the forest. Tullus battened down his fury. Making a scene would get him nowhere. ‘As if the same wouldn’t have happened to them,’ he muttered.
‘I know,’ said Fenestela, glowering.
Tullus continued to eavesdrop on his adversaries’ conversation. Before long, the topic had changed to the recent unrest among the legionaries. Some of the officers present felt that there was real cause for concern, but they were shouted down by Cordus and Victor.
Tullus had heard officers talking about it before, but wasn’t aware of such feelings among his own men. ‘You heard anything?’ he asked Fenestela.
Fenestela’s expression grew cagey.
A little alarmed, Tullus thumped a hand on the table. ‘Speak!’
‘Calm down.’
Those words would have made Tullus punch most men in the face. He had been through too much with Fenestela, however. ‘Tell me,’ he demanded.
‘There have been meetings. Some of our men have attended. I haven’t,’ Fenestela added.
‘What kind of meetings?’
‘From what I understand, they’re about demanding a rise in pay, and for the older soldiers, how to be granted their discharge. The vast majority of those present are ordinary legionaries. A lot of conscripts, as you’d imagine. The word is that men from the Twenty-First Rapax are involved too, but it may just be gossip.’
‘Why in Hades haven’t you told me about this before?’
‘The meetings mean nothing. They’re like the hot air rising off a pile of shit on a winter’s morning: smelly but with no substance.’
‘I’ll be the judge of that. How many of our men are we talking about?’
‘A few of the conscripts,’ admitted Fenestela. ‘Six, maybe ten.’
‘By all the gods, Fenestela!’ hissed Tullus.
Fenestela made an unhappy gesture. ‘Maybe I should have mentioned it before.’
‘You should have, curse you. I want to hear every snippet of information from now on, clear?’
‘This from the man who didn’t tell me of his suspicions about Arminius until the night before we set out for Vetera,’ grumbled Fenestela. He raised a hand when Tullus let out another oath. ‘All right, all right. I’ll tell you everything I hear.’
‘Good,’ said Tullus, taking a drink and wondering if he was losing his touch. Five years earlier, something like this would not have escaped his notice. Like as not, he decided, it was because he now tended to avoid the company of his soldiers. His reasoning was simple: the conscripts were a pain in the arse, and his other duties – paperwork, meetings with quartermasters and so on – took up every hour of the day. Deep down, though, Tullus knew it was for another reason.
He was wary of becoming attached to the men under his command, plain and simple. The deaths in ambush of almost his entire cohort, and indeed his legion, had sliced a gaping wound in his soul, an injury that was slow to heal. Any time it showed signs of improvement, he only had to think of his butchered soldiers or the lost eagle for it to return to its original, agonising state.
Tullus’ fists clenched around his wine cup. I will avenge my men and my legion one day, he swore to himself. All will be well when Arminius is dead, his warriors beaten and the Eighteenth’s eagle recovered. Germanicus will lead us to victory – I know it.
‘Well, well, if it isn’t Tullus, the hero of the Saltus Teutoburgiensis.’
A red mist descended over Tullus. He looked up to find Cordus standing over him, a sneer twisting his chubby face. ‘I’m no hero,’ said Tullus, wanting nothing more than to smash Cordus’ teeth down the back of his throat.
‘I was being sarcastic.’ Cordus called out to his companions: ‘Tullus is here! The centurion who managed to save ten soldiers out of an entire cohort.’
Fenestela reached out a hand to stop Tullus launching himself to his feet, but it was too late.
‘It was fifteen,’ said Tullus, pushing his face so close to Cordus’ that the man took an involuntary step away. ‘Fifteen.’
Cordus’ complexion went puce. ‘Move back, Tullus! You forget that I am your superior.’
‘Forgive me, sir.’ Tullus obeyed, his tone as insolent as he could make it.
‘You impertinent dog!’
Tullus leaned in and placed his lips against Cordus’ ear. ‘You love to taunt me, but I’d wager a year’s pay that you wouldn’t have made it through the forest. You’d have shit yourself and run off into the bog, like I saw so many do, or committed suicide because you couldn’t face death in battle.’
‘How dare you?’ hissed Cordus, furious.
Tullus glanced around the room. All eyes were on them. Good, he thought. ‘I look forward to your leadership, sir, during the campaign next year, like every officer in the legion.’ He saw heads nodding, and a few cups being raised. Apart from Fenestela, Victor and the rest at his table, the others present had no idea of the animosity between him and Cordus. Tullus lifted his own beaker. ‘To our general, Germanicus, and to victory over the savages!’
With a great roar of approval most of the customers were on their feet, shouting, ‘Ger-man-i-cus! Ger-man-i-cus!’
With poor grace, Cordus added his voice to the clamour. He gave Tullus a venomous look as he headed for the latrine, but Tullus didn’t care. ‘That round went to me, I thin
k,’ he muttered, retaking his seat. When Tullus revealed what he’d said, Fenestela let out a chuckle. ‘He won’t forgive you that one too quickly.’
‘Maybe he won’t,’ replied Tullus, still angry enough not to care. ‘But I won’t take an insult like that lying down. Escaping that forest with you and the rest was the hardest thing I’ve done. It’s also what I am proudest of, even if I should have saved more men.’
Fenestela gripped his arm. ‘No one could have done more than you did, you hear me, Tullus? No one. Every single man who was with us would say the same.’
Fenestela’s words could not convince Tullus that he had not failed, but he nodded.
As if sensing his anguish, Fenestela filled Tullus’ cup to the brim and pushed it across the table. ‘To fallen comrades. May we see them again one day.’
‘One day.’ Chest tight with grief, Tullus drank.
A horse galloped past the front of the tent with a thunder of hooves, moving in the direction of the road north. The rider’s urgency was an unusual enough occurrence for heads to turn, and questions to be asked. An optio near the door flap went and poked his head outside. ‘Looks like an official messenger,’ he announced.
The clamour in the tent soon returned to its previous volume, although men were now debating the messenger’s reasons for travelling with such speed. Later, Tullus would decide that no one could have predicted the calamitous news that he bore.
Not long after the rider had gone by, shouts and cries on the avenue outside became audible. This time, a centurion went to see what was going on. Not everyone spotted him come back, twenty heartbeats later, but Tullus did. The man’s face was as white as a senator’s new toga. Tullus shushed Fenestela and jerked his head at the centurion, who took a deep breath and said, ‘Augustus is dead.’
Tullus felt a sudden lightheadedness. Fenestela’s expression was so shocked it verged on the comical. Few others had heard, however.