The Eagle's Vengeance

by Anthony Riches

  He drank again, his eyes meeting the Tungrians’ over the rim of his beaker.

  ‘It was the smell that gave it away, you see, the stench of rotting meat. Putrid it was, like the smell you get on the farm when an ox dies in the summer and you don’t find its carcass for a week. I could hear the flies before we even got inside the fort, and when we saw what the bastards had done …’ He stopped, shaking his head with moist eyes. ‘You’ll think I’ve gone soft, but none of you could have witnessed what we saw without it hitting you like a kick in the balls. They’d killed everyone, not just the soldiers but every single person in the fort’s vicus as well, and then they’d piled them up on the parade ground and left them to rot. Soldiers, old men, women, children, all butchered and left for the crows, their bellies distended with the gases and their eyes pecked out. Half of the men were choking their guts up while the rest were crying like babies at the sight of the bodies of little kids with their throats cut. Once we’d burned what was left of them the tribune got us centurions together with a face like thunder and told us that it was time to teach the Brigantes what happens when they go too far. He was right, of course, and there wasn’t one of us that ever considered disobeying his orders, but …’

  ‘But what?’

  Julius was leaning forward now, his eyes fixed on Tullo’s face.

  ‘We were ordered to conduct an offensive sweep of every village within ten miles of the fort.’ The legion centurion’s face was stony, his eyes fixed on the mess’s wooden wall. ‘And just what do the words “offensive sweep” mean, you might ask? The orders were made very clear, and read out to the cohorts on parade to make sure that not one of the men was in any doubt as to what would be expected of them. We were to surround each village in turn with overwhelming force, allowing no escape routes, then subdue the population and pull out every man of fighting age to be sold into slavery, without exception. Every item of any value was to be confiscated, every roof to be burned, and anyone offering any resistance was to be killed without any warning. And that’s just what we did …’

  He looked around at their uncomprehending faces with the ghost of a wry smile.

  ‘You can’t see it, can you? The Sixth recruits its men from the area to the north and the south of Yew Grove, smart local lads who want to better themselves and see a brighter future serving under the eagle than hunting or farming the land they were born on. A good number of them were recruited from the very villages they were being ordered to ransack and torch.’

  Tullo fell silent, taking a long drink from his beer, and Julius voiced the question that every one of them was thinking.

  ‘How did they respond?’

  The legion man shrugged.

  ‘Well enough, I suppose, given the circumstances. A few men decided to run rather than face their own people with a drawn sword, and inevitably most of them were captured and brought back to face military justice.’

  ‘The usual?’

  He nodded again at Marcus’s question.

  ‘The usual. We beat each of them to death at dawn the day after they were dragged back into camp. I say “we”, because it was clear to the officers that we’d have a mutiny on our hands if the condemned men’s tent parties were ordered to carry out the sentence, so we did it for them. Some of them hated us for it even more than they’d hated us before, and some gave us a grudging respect for sparing them the choice between mutiny and murdering their friends for doing something they’d all considered.’

  He drank again, and Julius pursed his lips in appreciation of the stark nature of the war the legionaries had been required to fight against their own people.

  ‘So you finished pacifying the area round Sailors’ Town and then marched up here?’

  Tullo lowered his beaker, nodding gratefully as Dubnus refilled it to the brim with a sympathetic grimace.

  ‘Yes, and we were lucky in not being posted to the Antonine Wall. We’ve heard stories from the messengers stopping here overnight on their way south as to just what it was that the cohorts up there had to cope with. What they found themselves faced with was having to live alongside forts burned out and left to rot the last time they were abandoned twenty years ago, while the Venicones raided from the north at every opportunity and ambushed the work parties sent out to cut wood for the reconstruction work. A couple of centuries were torn up so badly that the legatus had to ban any detachment of less than a half a cohort from going north of the wall. There are some nasty rumours doing the rounds as well, about men who can change themselves into wolves at night and a pack of female warriors who hunt down any man left alive after an ambush and cut off his manhood before torturing him to death. All bullshit of course, but you put men under that sort of strain and the stories are going to fly thick and fast. It wasn’t much of a surprise when the Twentieth Legion mutinied and offered Legatus Priscus the throne, if only he’d get them back south to the old wall. They were bloody fools though …’

  Julius nodded his agreement.

  ‘If he’d taken the offer seriously he would have led you all off to fight for the empire in Gaul or Germany, with your three legions against double the number in all likelihood, and if you’d lost that battle you’d probably never have seen Yew Grove again even if you’d lived. So what stopped this Priscus from taking them up on the offer?’

  Tullo sank the rest of his beer before speaking again, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

  ‘Simple common sense, I expect. He came through here a month or so ago, headed south to Yew Grove with our legatus after they were both relieved of command, and he looked like a man with a calm head on his shoulders, a proper Roman general. Not like that fool Governor Marcellus, it was all his fault for sending us north in the first place. And now he’s been recalled to the hardships of his estate in Rome while the rest of us poor bastards pay the price for his stubbornness in blood and terror …’

  ‘Look out for some ligusticum, Lupus, that’s the herb we need to bring a bit of life back to lamb that’s been dead for longer than might be ideal. You know what to look for, those broad three bladed leaves?’

  The child nodded at Felicia, answering without conscious thought, his eyes bright as he searched the ground before them for any sign of its presence.

  ‘Yes, Mother.’

  The doctor stared fondly at the child for a moment before returning to her own search, shaking her head at the speed with which he had adopted her and Marcus as his de facto parents. Behind them a tent party of soldiers were searching the trees clustered around them with hard eyes, having been warned of the dire consequences that would befall them if they were to allow any mishap to befall the woman and child.

  Lupus was the first to smell it, wrinkling his nose at the faint but still unmistakable aroma of burned wood, and as he turned to Felicia with a questioning look she nodded her head.

  ‘I smell it too.’ They advanced down the hill’s slope, finding a faint path through the wild vegetation, but before the child could investigate any further, the tent party’s leader, a tall soldier with a fresh pink scar across the bridge of his nose, put a hard-fingered hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Not quite so fast, young ’un.’ He turned to Felicia with an apologetic expression. ‘I’m sorry, Domina, but we’ll lead from here. There may be things down there best not seen by the likes of you and the boy.’

  The doctor smiled up at him wryly.

  ‘We’ve both seen rather more “things” than you might think possible, soldier, but I appreciate your concern for our safety. After you, by all means.’

  The soldier nodded his thanks to her and ordered his men to form a skirmish line, advancing down the slope to either side of the path with their spears held ready to fight. Behind them Lupus drew his short sword, drawing amused smiles from the soldiers closest to him which he ignored with a face set hard in concentration. A hundred paces further down the hill the canopy of trees opened to reveal the late evening’s pink glow, and the soldiers stopped their advance to stare down int
o the ruins of what had clearly been a prosperous village until quite recently. Thirty or so burned-out dwellings were arrayed before them, their remaining timbers black with soot, previously straight beams that had been gnawed by fire until they had been left twisted and notched. The inferno that had been visited upon the settlement had reduced it to a ghost town, with only the skeletal remains of its once comfortable existence to bear witness to what had been there before. The tall soldier grimaced at the village’s wreckage, shaking his head.

  ‘Offensive sweep. Everyone in the village either killed or enslaved, anything of value confiscated and the houses and crops put to the torch. We did a few of these, back when the rebellion was getting nasty, just to show them who was in control …’ His voice tailed off, and he looked about him hollow-eyed. ‘Just like my own village, I expect. You’ll find what you’re looking for easily enough, every house had its own little patch of herbs.’

  He led his men forward, putting his spear over his shoulder and shrugging at Lupus who was still holding his sword out in front of him.

  ‘Nice strong wrists you’ve got there, sonny, but you’ve no need for the blade. There’s no one round here to offer you a fight, that’s for certain.’ He stepped into what had been the vegetable garden of a half-collapsed house, reaching down to grasp a knee-high plant and pull it up by the roots. ‘Here you are ma’am, ligusticum.’

  Felicia looked down at the herb garden, plants growing uncontrolled in the absence of their previous owner.

  ‘And not just ligusticum either. I see thymus and feniculum as well. Gather it all please, especially the ligusticum. That which we don’t use for cooking can be boiled up to make a very effective means of cleaning wounds and preventing infection. Oh, and I’ll have as much of that as you men can carry …’ Directing the soldiers’ attention to a plant that had grown up in the shadow of the destroyed structure’s remaining beams, she laughed at their mystified stares. ‘That bush isn’t just good for producing rasp-berries in the autumn, the leaves are wonderfully powerful sources of goodness. And we’ll have a strong need of that particular remedy before very long, I expect.’

  She turned to see Lupus stretching up to pick a dark-purple berry from an overhanging bush.

  ‘Leave that, Lupus dear, it’s quite the most poisonous fruit known to man.’ She turned to the soldier. ‘I’ll have a helmet full of those berries though, if you could pick them for me without breaking them please? After every battle there are men whose injuries are too terrible for them to live, and who nevertheless cling on to life for hours or even days of suffering. Even a few drops of the juice of that berry are usually enough to send them on their way without further suffering.’

  Tullo sat back and sipped at his beer again, looking with what Marcus took for calculation at the three men facing him.

  ‘So now you know what we’ve been through perhaps you’ll find it in you to recognise that in our shoes you might be looking just as shagged out and pathetic as we do now.’

  Dubnus held out his beaker and tapped brims with the legion centurion.

  ‘Here’s to you. I don’t reckon our men would have reacted any better if we’d ordered them to sack the villages around our fort on the wall.’

  Julius nodded reluctantly, and Tullo leaned forward again, slipping a wooden tablet out of his tunic and putting it on the table next to his beaker. When he spoke, his words were pitched so low that the Tungrians had to strain to hear them.

  ‘The rumours have it that you’re marching north to get our eagle back.’

  He sat in silence, staring intently at Julius and waiting for the first spear to reply. After a long pause the burly centurion sat forward and narrowed his eyes in question.

  ‘That’s supposed to be a secret. Who the fuck told you?’

  Tullo smiled tightly back at him.

  ‘My first spear. And don’t worry, I know how to keep my mouth shut.’ He pointed to the tablet with a meaningful expression. ‘As it happens I’d say he had good reason for letting me in on that little secret, since he knows what’s written in here.’

  The first spear’s face set in sceptical lines and he shook his head.

  ‘I’ll be the judge of that, if it’s all the same to you.’

  Tullo shrugged, picking up the tablet.

  ‘Suit yourself. Hear me out for just a little longer and then tell me to “fuck off and die quietly” if you like.’ He leaned close again. ‘It wasn’t just me that joined up, all those years ago. My brother Harus came to present himself to the recruiting centurion alongside me, two years younger than me and about twice as good at soldiering as ever I managed. He could’ve done the job of centurion without breaking a sweat, and I reckon he’d have made a bloody good cohort first spear, perhaps even got the big man’s job at the head of the legion’s first century with a little bit of luck. But all of that command stuff wasn’t for him …’ He paused for a moment and looked up at the roof, shaking his head with a smile. ‘No, all Harus ever wanted to be was the man carrying the emperor’s eagle round, the daft sod, and bugger me if he didn’t manage to get himself the job not soon after I made centurion. He was the senior officers’ golden boy you see, as honest as the day is long, deadly with a sword, the sort of strong-jawed man they take out into the villages to impress the young lads on recruiting tours, and did he love that eagle? He must have spent an hour a day polishing the bastard, and I swear he used to take it to the latrine with him to make sure nobody got the chance to put their dirty fingerprints on it.’

  ‘This is all very touching, but I’m starting to lose the will to live here. What’s your point?’

  Tullo raised an eyebrow at the frowning first spear.

  ‘See this?’ He pointed to a dark stain in the tablet’s wooden casing. ‘It’s his blood. He stopped an arrow in the throat at the battle of the Lost Eagle and choked to death. I found him later that afternoon, after we’d pulled your knackers out of the fire …’ His smile hardened momentarily as he leaned across the table. ‘Oh yes, I remember that all right, how you lot had been left to fight the barbarians to the death, and how that crusty old cavalry tribune Licinius led what was left of the Sixth down that forest path to save your arses. Anyway, I knew where to go and look for him, right in the middle of the circles of dead legionaries that were all that was left of the six cohorts that Legatus Sollemnis led into that ambush. There was a sword hidden beneath his body, with a beautifully made pommel that looked just like an eagle’s head. A lot like that one, as it happens …’

  He pointed at the swords resting against the wall where Marcus had left them.

  ‘When I saw you unfastening them earlier I wondered if that weapon looked familiar, and now I see it up close it’s clearly the same sword. And why, I wonder, does a centurion end up wearing a sword that I was told had probably belonged to Legatus Sollemnis, hidden under Harus’s body to keep it from the barbarians? None of my business, I suppose …’

  ‘Bloody right it’s not.’

  He ignored Julius and continued.

  ‘So why did I go and find my brother, when there were barbarians to be taking revenge upon? Partly to be sure that he was dead, and that he’d not been taken captive by the bluenoses, and partly to see what I could salvage from his body to remember him by. The blue-nosed bastards hadn’t had the time to strip him clean, else you wouldn’t be wearing that pretty sword, Centurion, but they had taken his bearskin which was the only thing he was carrying that wasn’t standard legion issue. And they left this …’ He raised the tablet again. ‘None of them could read, I suppose. And even if they could, who could ever make sense of it?’

  He opened the slim wooden box, presenting the Tungrian officers with the wax writing surface. Dubnus peered at the tightly packed words, struggling to make sense of them.

  ‘Not me. It’s impossible to read.’

  Tullo smiled at him, tapping his nose.

  ‘Not if you know what you’re looking at. Allow me to explain …’

  ‘I’m do
ne for the day. Come back tomorrow.’

  The stone mason turned away from the two soldiers, closing the door to his workshop and fishing in his purse for the key with which to lock it firmly shut. Sanga and Saratos exchanged glances, the former reaching into his own purse to fish out an impressive handful of coins. Jingling them noisily he shrugged, speaking loudly as he turned away.

  ‘Come on then, Saratos, let’s go and find a mason who’s bright enough not to turn away customers who want to pay extra for excellent fast work. We’ll just take all this silver to a man who doesn’t turn good money away …’

  The mason shot out an arm and grabbed the soldier’s sleeve, quickly releasing the hold when he saw the look on Sanga’s face.

  ‘Not so hasty, sir, I only meant to say that my normal business hours are at an end. For customers such as your good selves I’m always available to discuss commissions for fine stonework. Statues, gravestones—’

  ‘An altar. A nice big one with a carving of a soldier.’

  The mason smiled broadly.

  ‘Altars are my speciality, gentlemen. What wording were you thinking of having inscribed onto the stone?’

  Sanga nodded to Saratos, who passed over a tablet in which Morban had painstakingly written out the words that Sanga and his tent mates had agreed.

  ‘For the ghost gods …’

  The mason beamed at the two men.

  ‘A nice traditional start, if I might say so, gentlemen. So many men seem to omit it these days just to save money, and I’ve always thought it’s a false economy not to give the appropriate reverence to the shades of the departed. I …’