Eagles in the Storm

by Ben Kane

  Piso waited until they’d found a suitable, unpolluted spot before speaking to Metilius again. ‘Tubero needs to be taught a lesson,’ he said as they filled the first of many water bags.

  Metilius gave him a resigned look. ‘So do most of his kind, but it’s never going to happen. You might as well try and pull the sun from the sky. They do as they choose, Piso, and we do what we’re told. That’s the way it has always been, and the way it will remain.’

  ‘This will work,’ said Piso, grinning.

  Metilius rolled his eyes. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve done something already …’

  ‘Peace! I’m not stupid.’ Piso checked to make sure no one was close, before whispering, ‘Macula gave me an idea.’ Smiling at Metilius’ confused look, Piso muttered something in his ear.

  ‘Have you taken leave of your senses?’ Glances were thrown at them, and Metilius lowered his voice. ‘How would you do it?’

  Again Piso whispered.

  ‘There are sentries!’

  ‘Who walk around in circuits. As long as we time it right, we can get in and out without being seen.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Piso gave Metilius an evil smile. ‘You’re going to help me.’

  The day – again, scorching hot – dragged by. Germanicus’ scouts, a combination of cavalry and auxiliary infantry, went out in their hundreds, tasked with locating Arminius and his warriors. They returned through the afternoon, all reporting that the Cherusci chieftain and his forces were less than five miles away. Tullus, expert at wringing information from others, discovered from various scouts that the Germans were building a rampart of some kind. Pleased that there would be no immediate retaliation, Piso and his comrades gave little consideration to the news.

  Left by Tullus to their own devices – ‘Rest up. There’ll be fighting tomorrow or the next day – mark my words’ – Piso and his comrades lounged in the baking shade of their tent. He kept Macula close by him; the dog was vital to his plan. Idle gossip filled the air. Would Arminius face up to their army again, and when? Was it possible that the two legion standards still in enemy hands would be found this summer? Could the eight eagles seen the day before mean a Roman victory in the next clash with the Germans?

  Twice during the afternoon Piso left Macula in the care of Metilius and strolled, as casually as if he were in the settlement at Vetera, towards the camp’s centre. Tubero’s vast tent was positioned with those of the legion’s tribunes, a short distance from the headquarters. Under the pretence of offering odds on the chance of battle the next day, Piso spoke with the sentries on duty by the tribunes’ tents. He didn’t risk approaching the soldiers outside Tubero’s – the fewer clues there were, the greater chance of his never being discovered. That was if he succeeded, Piso thought. The alert manner and erect carriage of the six soldiers guarding Tubero’s quarters had driven home the danger of what he was going to attempt. Nonetheless, he pressed on with his snooping.

  The sentries were due to be changed at sunset, Piso discovered, and the fresh men would remain on duty until dawn. This discovery shaped his plan: the best time to act was when the guards were tired. They had to try at sundown, therefore, when Tubero’s duties would still have him in the camp’s headquarters. To go in near sunrise risked the legate waking to find one of his own soldiers within his bedchamber. Piso didn’t want to consider what the punishment for that infraction might be.

  Their comrades knew nothing other than the pair were going ‘on a mission’. Piso hoped that their ignorance would protect them in the event of being caught. Their tent mates’ well-being, as Metilius darkly warned Piso, would be the least of their worries if that happened. ‘We’ll be fine,’ Piso replied, praying that he was right.

  Close to the time he and Metilius were about to leave, events took on an unexpected and dramatic turn. Piso was again following Macula around, and about to add another warm turd to the five lumps already concealed in a ragged piece of cloth.

  ‘What’s that you’ve got there?’

  Tullus’ voice made Piso start. He turned, putting on his best grimace. ‘Picking dog shit up is a filthy job, sir, but it’s better than standing in it.’

  ‘It’s worst at night, sir, in your bare feet,’ added Metilius with perfect timing.

  ‘Scylax shits wherever he pleases,’ said Tullus in an understanding tone. Scylax was the name given to the pup he’d rescued with Artio. Now Artio’s pet, Scylax lived at Sirona’s inn. Every legionary in the cohort knew and loved the animal. ‘It sticks to the hobnails something terrible, eh?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ agreed Piso and Metilius.

  With a nod, Tullus left them to it.

  Piso let out a ragged breath.

  ‘We can still change our minds,’ hissed Metilius in his ear. ‘There’d be no piss-taking. You and me are the only ones who know.’

  Piso wavered for a moment, but then – picturing Tubero’s smug face and the legate’s anger towards Tullus and his dead comrade Vitellius – he stuck out his chin. ‘Stay if you wish. I’m going.’

  ‘Fuck you, Piso,’ whispered Metilius. ‘You can’t do it alone.’

  ‘Is that right?’ Shedding his metalled belt in favour of a simple leather one that would not alert the sentries with the jangling from its ‘skirt’, Piso scooped up his parcel of turds. ‘I’ll be back later,’ he announced to his other comrades.

  Curious looks followed him, but Metilius did not.

  Disappointment filled Piso as he walked fifty, then a hundred steps from their tent. Metilius was a tried and tested brother-in-arms – he should have accompanied Piso, even if he disagreed with him.

  ‘You’re a stupid bastard,’ growled Metilius by his left elbow.

  Piso spun, delighted. ‘Are you coming?’

  ‘You’d fuck it up on your own.’

  Grinning like a madman, Piso travelled a dozen strides before harsh reality crashed home again. ‘If Tubero’s in his tent, we abort the plan.’

  ‘Clearly.’

  ‘We walk away if there’s someone around the back of the tent.’

  ‘If any of the sentries give us a suspicious look, we give up.’

  The odds of success appeared so slim that Piso wavered again. ‘Maybe—’

  To his surprise, Metilius shoved him on. ‘We’re doing this. For Tullus and Vitellius.’

  Piso rolled his tongue around a dry mouth. He was strolling along the back of Tubero’s tent, the wrapped-up turds held against his body. To his left was a side wall of the large pavilion that formed the camp headquarters. Thirty paces off, Metilius was kneeling and affecting to lace a sandal by a corner of the large tent; in reality, he was keeping an eye out for sentries. By their calculations, Piso had a hundred heartbeats – now eighty-five – to get inside without being seen. Once there, he would have ample time to complete his task, as long as he kept count of his pulse and emerged when the sentries had passed by. Ample time, thought Piso sourly. This is fucking madness. Tubero wasn’t there, but there was every chance of being discovered by a servant. Piso’s nerve weakened – and strengthened. There could be no backing out now, he decided. The dice had been cast.

  Before his courage failed him again, Piso took a look around. Seeing no one other than Metilius, he knelt, lifted the tent’s bottom panel and peered inside. He’d chosen an antechamber, close to the dining area perhaps. There were tables covered with clean plates, glasses and cutlery. Twig brooms were stacked together. Ornate bronze lampstands with lions’ feet stood in a line. There was no one within eyeshot, so he placed his package inside and rolled after it, letting the leather fall behind him.

  He was already perspiring, but the tent’s oppressive heat and the terror brought on because he was now committed brought fresh sweat to his brow. Calm down, he told himself, breathing deep. By his somewhat confused calculation, the sentry was due at any time. Twenty heartbeats later, a measured tread and the shink of mail proved his theory to be correct. I’m inside, thought Piso. I may as well lo
ok around. Curiosity awakened, he crept towards the partition that divided this chamber from the next.

  Also empty, but lit by flickering oil lamps, it was a dining room. Luxurious reclining couches were arrayed in the usual fashion. Tables and chairs finer than any Piso had seen offered simpler ways to sit and eat. Crouched low, package in his hand, he stole inside. There were two exits; from beyond one, he could hear voices. Panicked, he aimed for the other way out. Tugging back the partition a finger’s breadth, he glanced into the next chamber. Hope flared in his breast. It appeared to be a sitting room, or area to relax in; there was a chance that it led to Tubero’s sleeping quarters.

  Piso had little option other than to try it. He tiptoed inside, around the cushion-covered armchairs and a painted statue of a graceful, half-nude Diana, to the partition in the far ‘wall’. His luck continued to hold – there was no one in the next room either, but wooden storage chests suggested that he’d reached Tubero’s private quarters. His hopes were confirmed as he lifted the lid of one and found fine tunics and undergarments within. With a flash of inspiration, he eased a stinking turd on to the clothing. This was so amusing that he did the same to the contents of a second chest, rolling the shit up in the folds of a pristine toga.

  Full of new confidence, he made his way into another chamber, finding it with delight to be Tubero’s bedroom. Dominated by a massive wooden bed, it had more furniture than Piso’s parents’ entire house, all of it beautiful and expensive. The gulf separating him from Tubero had never been more plain, and bitterness gnawed at Piso. Metilius was right. He and their comrades would live their entire lives at the bottom of the social ladder while Tubero and his kind lived in luxury at the top.

  With furious purpose, Piso smeared three turds over Tubero’s bed sheets, lifting the decorated coverlet back into place with great care. Piso saved his best idea until last. Hoping that Tubero entered first, not a servant, he arranged the last pieces of shit in a row across the threshold. Task accomplished, it was time to leave. Where the patrolling sentry was, Piso had no idea – he had long since forgotten his mental count of one hundred.

  He made it to the dining room before Fortuna, cackling to herself, intervened. A servant, talking over his shoulder to a colleague, came into the chamber at the same time, but from the entrance opposite. Terrified, Piso dropped to his hands and knees and crawled under a table. He watched, breath held, as the servant walked around its edge, so close that Piso could have reached out and touched him.

  ‘Get back in here – I need you!’ cried a voice in what Piso presumed was the kitchen.

  ‘Coming, coming,’ grumbled the servant at the table. He sniffed. ‘Has Tubero got a new dog?’

  ‘Not seen one. Why?’

  ‘It smells as if one’s taken a shit in here.’

  As the servant vanished whence he’d come, Piso stifled a laugh. If the smell was bad in this room, it would be multiple times worse in Tubero’s bedchamber, and that was before the prick stepped in the turds in his doorway.

  Once Piso had managed to slip unseen from Tubero’s tent, he would have liked nothing more than to loiter nearby. To overhear the legate’s reaction as he trod in Macula’s shit or found his ruined sheets was worth a month’s pay, a grinning Piso said to Metilius. ‘Maybe two,’ his friend had added, snorting with laughter. The risks were too great to linger, however. Their mere presence in the area as they had strolled about Tubero’s tent could have put them in danger, and so they ambled back to their century’s position, chortling as they imagined the legate’s outraged response. Interrogated by their comrades, the pair gave in and told their tale, but not before swearing everyone to secrecy. Much hilarity ensued, and a bemused Macula was fussed over more than ever before.

  That night, Piso slept like a baby. Awakened by the dawn trumpets, it took a moment to remember what they’d done. A chuckle escaped him.

  Metilius opened his eyes. ‘What?’

  ‘I hope Tubero had some spare sheets,’ whispered Piso.

  They both dissolved into laughter.

  ‘Out of your blankets, you maggots!’ Fenestela’s staff thwacked the leather over their heads. He stuck his head in the open flap and glared at them. ‘What’s so fucking funny?’

  ‘Nothing, sir.’ Piso scrambled out of the tent, followed by Metilius and the rest of their comrades.

  ‘Don’t lie to me, Piso. You were giggling like two children.’ Fenestela jabbed him in the chest with the butt of his staff. ‘What’s the joke?’

  Panicking, without a ready lie, Piso flailed about. ‘Er, we—’

  ‘We were talking about Calvus’ visit to the whorehouse when we get back to Vetera, sir,’ said Metilius, pitching his voice to be heard.

  Calvus went bright red as a wave of comments flooded in about how he’d fail to rise to the job, finish before he had even got undressed, or catch the pox.

  Fenestela’s lips twitched; he gave Piso a suspicious look before striding off to wake the rest of the century.

  ‘D’you want to be found out?’ hissed Metilius.

  ‘Of course not,’ retorted Piso, embarrassed and angry.

  ‘Have a lie on the tip of your tongue then.’

  Not long after the morning meal, news swept the tent lines that Tubero was out for blood. Piso had known his prank risked severe punishment, but had shoved his concerns to the back of his mind. Now the real gravity of what might happen was rammed home. Nervous, he and Metilius could do nothing but keep their heads down, and hope that the legate’s unpopularity meant that even if someone had an inkling of who’d been responsible, they would say nothing.

  An official messenger arrived soon after. Once he’d gone, Tullus had the legionaries line up before their tents. ‘It seems that a lowlife crept into our legate’s tent yesterday evening and spread dog shit round his bedchamber,’ he announced. ‘It was in Tubero’s bed, rolled up in his clothes – everywhere.’

  With great effort, Piso held in his amusement. Tiny choking noises emanated from several comrades, but died away fast. To laugh now would bring down Tullus’ wrath.

  ‘Tubero is furious. Incandescent! Every centurion in the legion has been tasked with finding out if any of his men were responsible for this heinous crime.’ Tullus’ stony gaze bored into the eyes of each soldier he passed. ‘Stand forward if you can shed light on the matter.’

  No one moved a muscle, still less broke ranks to admit their guilt.

  Piso was properly worried now. What a fool he’d been. His rash behaviour could yet see his neck under the executioner’s blade.

  Slow and careful, Tullus paced along the lines of men for a second time.

  Piso’s fear soared as he approached. By the time Tullus came abreast of him and Metilius, his heart was hammering like a captured bird’s. Face blank, Piso kept his eyes focused in the middle distance. To his considerable relief, Tullus walked by without stopping.

  ‘I’m proud that none of you were involved.’ The tonking of Tullus’ vitis off one of his greaves was an acute reminder of his power. ‘Let’s forget about the matter – there are more important things to deal with. Get yourselves ready. Germanicus is marching the army to meet Arminius. We leave within the hour.’

  Excitement swept the legionaries. There was a rush to don sandals and shrug on subarmales. Men sorted through piles of equipment, finding their armour and swords. Not daring to discuss things with Metilius – that could be done later, when Tullus wasn’t close – Piso busied himself preparing his gear.

  ‘Have you seen Macula recently?’

  Piso jumped. He hadn’t heard Tullus arrive. ‘Macula, sir?’ Piso’s stomach did a neat roll as he glanced about. ‘No.’

  ‘My servant’s taken him to stay with a mule-driver in the wagon train,’ said Tullus in a low voice. ‘Best for those who have dogs not to have dogs for the moment, eh?’

  He knows, thought Piso with increasing panic, he fucking knows. ‘Yes, sir,’ Piso said, miserable not to have foreseen that all such men could be qu
estioned.

  ‘Macula can come back when this has blown over.’

  ‘If you say so, sir,’ replied Piso, hedging his bets.

  ‘It was dangerous as hell to do what you did, but well done.’

  Still unsure if it was safe to admit his guilt, Piso put on an innocent face. ‘Do what, sir?’

  ‘Don’t be coy, maggot! Sneaking into Tubero’s tent with a bundle of Macula’s turds. I couldn’t have come up with a better plan myself.’

  Piso’s knees almost gave way. Tullus knew – he was pleased! – and he wasn’t going to turn him over to Tubero.

  But Tullus hadn’t finished. He poked Piso in the chest, hard. ‘Don’t ever do something that stupid again.’

  ‘No, sir,’ muttered Piso, his momentary elation dissipating.

  ‘You’re too good a soldier for me to lose. So is Metilius.’ Tullus leered. ‘Oh yes, I know he was with you. The two of you are thick as thieves, and Fenestela heard you laughing this morning.’

  Piso shuffled his feet, and hoped that whatever punishment Tullus had in mind wasn’t too severe.

  ‘I won’t forget it.’

  Piso’s jaw dropped.

  ‘What are you gaping at?’ bellowed Tullus, every part the centurion again. ‘Germanicus wants you ready for battle! Go on then, or you’ll feel my vitis across your back.’

  Piso hid his grin as he hurried to obey. They’d done it, and Tullus’ reaction had made it worthwhile.

  Chapter XXV

  DAWN HAD BROUGHT with it another clear sky. On the eastern horizon, the sun wasn’t yet visible, but the temperature had begun to rise. It would be another scorching day, like the two that had passed since the Roman victory at Idistaviso. Some miles to the east of the battleground, Arminius was sitting close to his tent on a stout fallen tree trunk. Left leg stretched out before him, he watched the healer remove the bandage encasing his calf.

  Fear tickled Arminius’ spine as the cloth wrapping, stiff with dried blood, was unwrapped little by little. He closed his eyes, no longer willing to look. The dressing had been on since the battle – he’d been too busy trying to keep his alliance together to have it seen to. He was convinced that Germanicus could yet be beaten this summer – all they needed was the right terrain. Against the odds, Maelo had found the perfect site, several miles away. Mightily encouraged, Arminius had used all of his considerable charisma on the chieftains. As a result, many thousands of warriors remained in the huge camp, keen for revenge on the Romans.