Legionary: Viper of the North (Legionary 2)

by Doherty, Gordon

  ‘Tastes kind of . . . fruity,’ Avitus mused, squinting as he beheld the ale cup, smacking his lips together.

  ‘Fruity? It’s bloody ale! You’re the one who’s bloody fruity!’ Quadratus gasped, then roared in laughter at his own remark.

  Avitus shrugged. ‘I just mean, well, you know how wine’s got flavour, well ale has too, if you think about it.’

  ‘That’s just it. I don’t think about it, I drink it.’ Quadratus jostled in mirth again.

  ‘Alright, alright,’ Avitus said, shuffling in his bar stool indignantly. ‘I’m just saying, that’s all. No harm in observing, is there? Besides, I’m not sure what I’d choose these days. Wine or ale. Wine’s got such a rich . . . ’

  ‘Ale,’ Quadratus said flatly. ‘It’s what my ancestors drank, it’s what I drink. Ale, every time.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Avitus chuckled, supping his drink again. There was a definite note of cherries in there, but he decided not to bother mentioning this to Quadratus. Sighing, he felt the strength of the drink wash around his mind. This was the golden moment, the sense of elation during the first few drinks and before the mood changes and gradual loss of function that usually followed. It was also the short time in between sobriety and deep drunkenness when memories of times past would leave him be.

  He glanced around the inn at the array of rosy-cheeked locals and the handful of recruits who were not on sentry duty that morning. Then he looked to Quadratus and realised how much he had missed times like this. Times when both of them were just good friends, drinking and sharing stories together. That was how it had been, he mused, in these last few years, ever since he had come east from Rome; they had shared a contubernium, marching, camping, eating and fighting together. Simple times and good times.

  But things had changed when the contubernium had been broken up to repopulate the centurionate, which had been almost completely wiped out during the Bosporus mission. Zosimus, Felix and Quadratus had all been promoted to lead their own centuries and it had driven a wedge into the group. They could never share the same degree of camaraderie while on duty. And Avitus himself could never aspire to join the centurionate, just as he had explained to Gallus when the post had been offered to him; a mere optio could live out his days as just another face in the ranks, but a centurion’s name would be too visible – and then the past would find him, surely. He realised he was no longer smiling. The golden moment was over.

  His mind drifted inevitably to the past and the dark times, to the stain on his soul: all those missions he had carried out in the provinces of the Western Empire for his shadowy masters, and that last mission they had tasked him with, sending him east. His only solace was that the Avitus that had been sent out east had died that day, or so his old masters believed. And that last mission had never been completed. Even now the contents of that last scroll brought a bitter gall to his throat. So he had chosen his path, and anonymity and fleeting friendships with those who passed through the ranks were to be his lot. If only that had been the end of the matter, he pondered with a scowl.

  He shook his head clear of the thoughts, slapped a hand on his knee and forced a smile. ‘Right, another one?’

  Quadratus held up a finger as he drained his existing cup, then slapped it down in the timber bar top. ‘Aaah!’ He wiped a hand over his moustache. ‘Yep, it tastes sweeter with every one.’ Then he frowned. ‘Still not fruity, mind.’

  Avitus chuckled, turning to the barmaid and rummaging in his purse to produce two bronze folles. ‘Felicia, another couple of ales please?’

  She looked up, her complexion milky-fresh, blue eyes sparkling and a smile beaming through ochre-stained lips. ‘Be right with you!’ She chirped, sweeping out from behind the bar with a tray of drinks for another table.

  Avitus offered her a warm smile in return. Then the shadow of guilt passed over him, and he quickly turned away from her and back to Quadratus.

  ‘Lucky whoreson, that Pavo,’ the big Gaul grunted. ‘Seems she’s settled on him.’

  ‘Eh? Aye, for now,’ Avitus raised an eyebrow. Felicia had something of a rich history of involvement with men stationed at the fort. And he was pretty sure he knew why. He gazed into the crackling log fire, memories of that summer night coming back to him all too easily.

  It was only a few months after he had sent false reports of his own death back to his western masters. He had been in the Claudia fort, heading back to the barrack blocks when he had noticed the young legionary, Curtius, creeping in the shadows. The lad was armed with a dagger, moving silently for the door at the end of the first barrack block. Avitus realised to whose quarters he was headed, and at that moment he understood that the boy was no mere legionary. His old masters had hired this lad to complete the mission that Avitus could not. The memory of what happened next stung like acid in his thoughts; the scuffle, the pleading, the hesitation, then the thrust of the dagger. For just a fleeting moment on that dark night, he had justified spilling one man’s blood over another’s, a logic he had never again understood. His usual justification to himself was that he had been young and foolish. ‘Old and foolish now,’ he muttered.

  ‘Eh?’ Quadratus grunted. ‘What’re you on about?’

  Avitus looked up, realising that Felicia had delivered two fresh ales to them while he had been ruminating. ‘Ah, nothing, just thinking aloud.’

  ‘We’ve all got a lot on our mind these days?’ Quadratus nodded to the open door, through which the snow-covered bulk of the fortress could just be made out. ‘Lupicinus and his legionaries seem set on breaking the recruits. I mean really breaking them, not just scaring them shitless to see how they’ll react under pressure. No, he seems to want to really destroy their spirits. Obsessed with showing them up as cowards . . . obsessed!’ The big Gaul snorted in disgust.

  Avitus nodded. ‘He has no time for the Claudia or the task of keeping the borders safe. It’s all about Lupicinus, the big hero.’

  ‘Big, prancing fairy, more like. I’ve yet to see him in battle, when it really matters,’ Quadratus replied, stabbing a finger into the cracked oak bar top. ‘And from what I’ve heard, when it really matters, he goes missing.’

  ‘Let’s hope it never comes to that,’ Avitus supped his ale, ‘If Pavo’s managed to carry out his orders, then Gallus and the first century are due back within a week. Pray to Mithras the togas that went with him managed to talk Athanaric round to peace.’

  Quadratus shot him a wry glare. ‘Now you really have been drinking too much of that fruity ale.’

  The pair shared a dry cackle.

  Neither noticed Felicia slip from the inn, cloaked and hooded.

  ‘Faster, ya!’ Felicia yelped, heeling her mount on down the road that linked the town to the XI Claudia fortress, snow churning in her wake. Then she veered from the road, cutting diagonally across the fields. I only have a short time. The faster I get there, the sooner I find out the truth.

  When she neared the fort, she saw the wall guards stretching over the battlements to identify her. She slowed the beast upon approaching the walkway traversing the ditch that surrounded the walls, then lowered her hood and called up to the guards atop the gatehouse. ‘Yeast, for the store,’ she said through a forced smile, holding up a hemp sack.

  The sentry’s stony face melted into a boyish grin upon seeing her, and he called down to the gates. ‘Open up; lady Felicia coming through.’

  The smile fell from her face as soon as the sentry’s back was turned, then it reappeared as soon as the gates swung open. The space inside the fort seemed larger than usual; the garrison was even sparser than she had realised. Still, all that mattered was that one man in particular remained stationed here. And while he was drinking himself into a stupor back at the inn, she had this precious opportunity to seize the truth. The speculatore, the bastard of an imperial agent who had murdered her dear brother, Curtius.

  ‘Afternoon, miss,’ the burly legionary manning the gates offered with a dip of his head. ‘It’s a cold one fo
r you to be ridin’ around in.’

  It’s about to get a whole lot colder, she realised, her thoughts darkening as she set her eyes upon the barrack block beside the horreum. She patted the hemp sack. ‘Maybe, but the price of this will buy a few weeks worth of firewood for the inn.’

  ‘Ah, but the stuff we brew here tastes like warm ditchwater compared to the amber nectar you pour us up at The Boar.’

  As she dismounted, she tittered and the legionary grinned lovingly. That was all it took, she found, to get from them what she wanted. That was all it had taken the previous week when she had plied some young recruit with ale. She had hoped that in his inebriation, the youngster would help her distil her theory that one of the veterans was the man she sought. Then, like a ray of sunshine in the dead of night, he had started slurring about a secret, something he had seen in one of the barrack blocks; a legionary, crouched and alone, weeping, holding a scroll with a special seal. She hated herself for using the lad like this, but all that mattered was justice. Or was it revenge?

  ‘I hope to see you up there soon?’ She winked. ‘Now, I’ll just drop this off at the horreum, yes?’

  The legionary nodded, still smiling before turning back to the gates.

  She made for the horreum doors, then stopped and shot a quick glance around the battlements. All of the wall guard were facing out, keeping an eye on the countryside. Good boys, she mused. Then she slipped over to the barrack block and crept inside.

  Inside, she wrinkled her nose at the questionable odour of stale sweat. Through the gloom, she performed a quick reconnaissance of the contubernium blocks, darting along the corridor, poking her head into each one, and each one was deserted. Her heart began to thud as she reached the block at the end of the corridor. Inside, eight bunks lay unoccupied, the bedding roughly tidied. This was it.

  Then she stopped, seeing the strip of red silk tied to the bedpost of one of the bunks. She moved to it and traced a finger over its softness, remembering Pavo’s face when she had given it to him. She could still detect the sweet scent she had put on it to remind her of him. Pavo was a different prospect to the other soldiers; a young man with a good heart. Apart from this strip of silk, all she had given him was mixed messages and violent mood swings. He deserved better than that, and she had known this for some time. But, like everything else, Pavo came second to finding Curtius’ killer. She composed herself and turned away from Pavo’s bunk.

  She scoured the wall at the other end of the room. There it was, just as the young recruit had said; an area of flaking mortar, just behind the head of one of the lower bunks. This was where the recruit had seen the weeping veteran and the scroll. She gathered herself and heaved at the timber frame of the bunk, hauling it back from the wall. Now she could see the outline of the stone that sat loose in the mortar. She wrapped her fingers around it and pulled. With a grating of rock and a cloud of dust, the stone came loose. She squatted to be level with the hole it left behind.

  There, at the back, lay a scroll, just as she had been told. She reached in and lifted it out. It was a single scroll, yellowed and torn around the edges. Most importantly, it bore a wax seal. The seal was coded, but Felicia had seen that coding before. The seal of the Speculatores, the scum of the empire. Men who would rob, rape or murder at the emperor’s request. The man who had hidden this scroll was one of them. Curtius was one of them too! A voice rasped in her mind. She screwed her eyes shut tight and shook her head.

  He was young and foolish. He did not deserve what happened to him, she affirmed.

  Stuffing the scroll into her cloak, she then opened the sack of yeast and rummaged inside, pulling out a smaller sack that jingled with a thick clunk of coins, and bore the XI Claudia bull stamp on its fibres. She placed it into the hole and replaced the stone and then pushed the bunk back into place.

  Outside, she heard a babble of voices. Fear gripped her. She scurried for the door then stopped herself, taking a deep breath and standing tall before she stepped outside. The heavy snow was still falling as she passed two recruits who entered the barrack block. Then, she threw one arm over her horse, ready to mount, when a voice split the air.

  ‘You there! What were you doing in the barracks?’

  She started, glancing to the centre of the fort. From the principia, a sharp-faced, plumed and ornately armed figure approached her. Squinting, she searched for a viable explanation. Then she relaxed into a beguiling smile as she found one. The perfect one.

  ‘I was looking for one of your legionaries. Numerius Vitellius Pavo?’

  ‘Ah, Pavo, the so-called hero?’ The officer chortled.

  She had heard of the jumped-up peacock who had come in to rule the XI Claudia, and she was fairly sure this was him.

  The officer’s expression changed as he beheld Felicia at close range, a glint of lust igniting in his eyes and his tongue jabbing out to dampen his lips. ‘Pavo is currently out in the badlands of Gutthiuda, miss. He won’t be back here for some time. But perhaps I can help? Comes Lupicinus, at your disposal.’

  She suppressed a shudder, then composed herself. ‘Well, perhaps,’ she looked away, then back to him with a girlish shyness.

  Lupicinus puffed out his chest. ‘I am in charge of all you see here, and of all you can see in every direction from the top of the walls. What can I do for you?’

  ‘Well, I went into Pavo’s bunk block there, and I noticed something. The wall was crumbling.

  ‘Ah yes, the place needs patching up and a good lick of paint,’ Lupicinus agreed.

  ‘But there was something behind the mortar,’ Felicia tried her best to look puzzled, ‘some kind of sack with a legionary emblem on it.’ She leaned closer to him, looking to each side as if to share a secret. ‘It was full of coins.’

  Lupicinus’ face paled and he squared his jaw.

  Quadratus woke with a groan, rubbing his temples. He felt as if his head had been used for clubbing practice and his mouth was bone dry and felt as if it was coated in fur. His eyes were still welded shut, but he could sense the dawn light upon them. Without opening them, he rolled over, away from the light, shivering, clasping at his blanket – it seemed coarser than usual, and there was a dank, musty smell in the air. Well it would take more than that to rouse him, he mused. All he could remember of the previous night at the inn was Avitus’ face growing rosier, the fire warmer, and the local ladies friendlier. When had they left the inn to head back to the fort? His memory was pure, unspoilt, jet-black.

  Another wave of agony shot through his brain. ‘Oh bugger, I think we overdid it this time, Avitus,’ he grunted in the direction of his optio’s bunk. But there was no reply.

  Then he heard a tinny rattle of keys in a lock.

  Quadratus blinked his eyes open. He was not in the barrack block.

  ‘What the? Where am I?’

  He shot to sitting, squinting at the orange glare of the dawn sun that beamed through an open door, framing a plumed silhouette and two armed men either side.

  ‘Centurion Quadratus,’ the voice spoke.

  Quadratus instantly recognised the voice. ‘Comes Lupicinus?’ He scanned the bare stone room and the iron bars. ‘Why am I in jail?’

  ‘You have been found guilty of the theft of legionary wages.’ Lupicinus held up a hemp sack with the faded bull emblem of the legion. ‘I told all of you I would find the culprit, and I told you they would be dealt with severely.’

  Quadratus roared with laughter despite his miserable state, then clutched his pounding head. ‘Leave it out. Now get out of my way, it must be time for morning roll call.’ He stood and scrutinised each of the men stood by Lupicinus, fully expecting one of them to be a grinning Avitus. But both of them were Lupicinus’ men, comitatenses clad in their scale vests, and both wore baleful glares and flexed their fingers by their sword hilts.

  ‘You are to be bound in a sack of asps and drowned in the Danubius.’

  Quadratus’ jaw fell open and he uttered a bemused gasp. The punishment had fallen int
o folklore such was the rarity of its use, similar to stoning and being beaten to death by colleagues.

  Lupicinus nodded to his two men. They both strode forward and grappled Quadratus by an arm each.

  ‘Get your hands off me, you whoresons!’ He roared, thrashing his elbows, the left crunching against one man’s jaw, sending him spiralling back into the wall. Then, with a sledgehammer of an uppercut, the big Gaul sent the other man flying against the iron bars. Then he turned on Lupicinus, but the comes stood poised, his sword drawn. Quadratus clasped his hand to his missing scabbard, then uttered a curse and balled his fists, stomping forward.

  ‘Guards!’ Lupicinus roared down the jail corridor, backing off.

  At once, a party of five more of Lupicinus’ men came thundering down the corridor bearing spears. They surrounded the big Gaul and pinned him in the circle of their spearpoints.

  Quadratus’ face grew a shade of plum, and he readied to lash out, despite the odds. Then a cry echoed down the corridor.