The Wolf's Gold: Empire V

by Anthony Riches

  ‘You’ve miscalculated, Gerwulf. The Sarmatae came to battle before we even reached the border, and they got their barbarian arses kicked in for their trouble. It seems some savages just can’t be educated, doesn’t it? We were already marching south as the advance guard for Clodius Albinus and his legion’s return to Apulum when the news of this rather spectacular piece of larceny arrived, and the legatus has had his men at the double pace ever since. He’s given orders for you to be taken alive at all costs, since he wants to make an example of you that won’t be forgotten for a while. Your future holds nothing more than torture and protracted death, and Theodora’s too, I’d imagine. You’re about to find out what happens when you piss off a Roman aristocrat by biting the hand that’s been feeding you.’

  The German shook his head again with a mocking smile on his face.

  ‘It’s just not quite ringing true I’m afraid. Nice try, Rutilius Scaurus, but I think we’ll just get on with finding out the truth, shall we?’ He raised the knife, putting the point against Scaurus’s lower eyelid. ‘This should be a novel experience for you, using one eye to look into the other.’

  A centurion burst into the courtyard panting for breath, gasping out his message as the prefect spun to face him with any thought of torture momentarily forgotten.

  ‘Lord Wolf! There are lights on the road in the valley!’

  Gerwulf strode across to him.

  ‘What lights? What are you talking about?’

  Still gasping for air, the officer pointed back down the road to the wall as he panted out his news.

  ‘Centurion Hadro sent me to find you, sir. We have torches coming up the road, hundreds of them. He said to tell you it looks like a cohort on the march!’

  The German turned away from him, putting his face so close to Scaurus that the Roman could smell the spiced meat on his breath.

  ‘What kind of fucking trick is this?’

  The tribune shrugged.

  ‘I did try to tell you. That’s my lads closing the front door as the advance guard for the Thirteenth Gemina. Legatus Albinus resolved that we should all march through the night by torchlight, so by morning I expect you’ll be knee-deep in legionaries, and not just in front of the wall either. He’ll seal this place up tighter than an Egyptian tomb and wait until you surrender for lack of food. Of course, the miners will starve to death before it gets to that point, but the legatus doesn’t really care very much about those sorts of incidentals. As we used to say when I served under him in the German Wars, there’s hard, there’s downright ruthless, and then there’s Decimus Clodius Albinus.’

  For a moment he was sure that his captor was going to slam the dagger still held in one hand into his belly, but the German turned away and dropped the weapon back into its sheath.

  ‘You four, take these two prisoners back into the villa and keep a close eye on them. I’ll be back when we know the truth of this apparent attack. The rest of you come with me!’

  Marcus and the men huddled in the grass around him had watched in silence as the star that formed Orion’s knee nudged down onto the horizon and disappeared, and the Roman had fingered his amulet and muttered a prayer to Mithras that Silus had managed to achieve his part of the plan as required. After a short while a centurion had run up the hill towards the villa, gasping for breath as he’d struggled against the weight of his armour. In the valley below them they could hear the sounds of soldiers being called to arms, the shouts and curses of their officers and the clatter of equipment. Dubnus had stared at the runner’s back, muttering what they were all thinking.

  ‘It seems as if Silus has managed to get their attention.’

  Marcus’s whispered reply had been a low growl.

  ‘Indeed. All we need now is for Gerwulf to put his head into the noose.’

  The sound of boots on the road that reached them a moment later made the raiding party tense in anticipation, every man straining his eyes up the road into the town. A body of men came running down the hill from the villa, Gerwulf once again in their midst, and Qadir raised his bow in the shadow of the tree once more, only to lower it with a disgusted shake of his head as the pack of men raced past them and on down the valley.

  ‘There were nineteen of them before, including Gerwulf, but now there are four less. Either our tribune fought and died, but managed to kill four men, or those soldiers have been left behind to guard captives.’

  Marcus pulled a face at Qadir’s conclusion.

  ‘How many men would your two archers have taken down before they were killed, do you think?’

  The answer was immediate.

  ‘Two apiece. Possibly three if they were fortunate.’

  ‘Exactly. And the tribune and Arminius would have done at least as well. There are too many men left standing for there to have been a fight, and none of them are wounded, or even blooded. I think they’ve been captured.’ He looked at his friend with a grimace of frustration. ‘Mithras, but I’m tempted to kick the doors on that place and pull him out now, but his orders were very clear. Follow me.’

  They stood, and Marcus, Dubnus and Martos put on the iron caps they had taken from the men at the mine’s entrance, hefting their captured shields. Marcus led them down the road at a purposeful trot in the wake of Gerwulf’s men, whose hobnails could still be heard clattering down the road towards the wall in the darkness ahead of them. Rounding a corner they came into sight of the Raven Head mine’s camp, now visibly different with the erection of a high palisade around the barracks buildings. A quartet of soldiers was standing guard on the gate, and another four stood on the palisade above them with bows, the latter staring to the west from their elevated position at the lights in the valley beyond the wall. Marcus quickened his pace, running towards the guards with his swords still sheathed and trusting that the three men’s disguises would hold for long enough.

  ‘So, here we are again?’

  Theodora shot a caustic look across the villa’s dining room at Scaurus as he settled back into his chair and ignored the two soldiers whose swords waited only inches from his back, shaking her head at him with a disdainful expression.

  ‘Don’t go getting any ideas, Tribune. Our couplings were purely professional. You’re really not my type.’

  He smiled up at her, patting his crotch.

  ‘Nor you mine, if truth be told. I’ve never really been all that attracted to maneaters, although I can only salute your abilities beneath the sheets. You were good enough value in bed, but I think you’d soon get a little monotonous as a life companion.’ He returned her cold stare with an unruffled shrug. ‘I’m sorry Theodora, but you must realise that your apparent nymphomania makes you somewhat more demanding than most men could manage.’ He laughed at her piqued expression. ‘And do please spare me the indignant glare, madam, because we both know that your main value to your partnership with your brother is your skill as a seductress, don’t we?’

  Marcus called out the night’s watchword again, shouting a command as he closed with the gate guards.

  ‘They’ll be sounding the horns any moment now. Close the gates!’

  Responding without thought to the note of command in his voice, the four men ran to the gates, starting to heave them closed as the Roman and his companions unexpectedly drew their swords and tore into them. Before the man on the fighting platform above them had a chance to respond to the sudden onslaught, they found themselves under attack by Qadir and his Hamians, two of the enemy falling to the first volley while the men below died on their attacker’s swords without ever really comprehending what was happening. One of the men on the elevated platform drew breath to shout for help, then somersaulted over the railing as an arrow hit him in the head, the air hissing out of him in a scream that was cut off by his crunching impact with the ground.

  After a moment’s silence a door opened in the wooden hut that had been tacked onto the side of the palisade, an angry voice calling from just inside. The second wave of Marcus’s party hurried through the ar
ch as Martos and Dubnus put their shoulders to the heavy gates, and the young Roman slapped Lugos on the shoulder, pointing at the open door.

  ‘What the fuck are you lot pissing about at now? I’ll have your fucking—’

  The guard commander stepped through the door and died without ever knowing what had hit him, his corpse bouncing off the door frame with its head smashed by Lugos’s hammer. Bellowing his joy at a chance to fight, the giant Briton raised his leg and kicked the next man in line behind the guard commander back into the hut, then squeezed his bulk though the door frame and punched the hammer’s head into the fallen soldier as he struggled back to his feet. A chorus of screams sounded as he waded into the remaining occupants, the flimsy structure shaking as the warrior unleashed the full fury of his monstrous strength.

  ‘Shut those gates!’

  Qadir and his archers hurried into the palisade as the entrance was secured.

  ‘There are more soldiers coming.’

  Marcus lifted a wry eyebrow, raising his voice to be heard over the bestial roars that Lugos was uttering as he ripped through the helpless guards.

  ‘It’s hardly surprising, is it? He’s making enough noise to wake the dead.’

  Theodora put her head on one side and looked down at him with a different, more calculating expression.

  ‘And just how long have you known that?’

  ‘How long have I known for certain that you’re the “Wolf’s” sister? Oh, about a week, although I was starting to wonder about you a good while before that. While we were intimate I noticed that you had the faintest hint of fair hair in your scalp, almost unnoticeable unless a man got close to you from behind and you put your head back. I put your dying your hair down to a cosmetic choice, although I’ve always preferred blondes myself, and so I thought no more of it for a while.But when I reached Porolissum I asked a few questions about Gerwulf of an old friend of mine, a man who moved in the same aristocratic circles that you and your brother flirted with during your time in Rome. When he reminded me that the prince had a younger sister – and told me what a swathe she cut through the youth of the senatorial class for a short time – it set me to thinking again, and my thoughts came back to those blonde hair roots. Clodius Albinus told me that Gerwulf’s sister was a blonde, a particularly vivacious young woman who broke several young men’s hearts when she vanished overnight, apparently following her brother when he went to serve on the frontier, and prompting all those scandalous and bitter stories about the two of you being incestuous lovers. Of course, everyone thought you’d be back in no time. The expectation was that life on the frontier would simply be too dull for you after the pleasures of the capital, but now that I’ve met you I know that wasn’t the case, was it?’

  She smiled at him, her confidence returning after the shock of his revelation.

  ‘Far from it, Tribune. It was Rome that was tedious, compared to all the fun we had once my brother was serving. There was always a senior officer willing to look after Gerwulf’s career in return for my favours, and to protect me from being sent back to Rome. It was much more fun after he took command of these Germans though. An independent command provides so many more opportunities for mischief.’

  ‘Not to mention profit. And murder. And when the two of you got skilled at putting profit and murder together, you had the idea to rob the Ravenstone? It was your idea?’

  Theodora laughed, her tone when she answered dripping with sarcasm.

  ‘Oh, aren’t you clever? Of course it was. Gerwulf’s such a boy at heart, only happy when he’s hacking his way through his enemies. Whereas I . . .’

  She pirouetted before him, and Scaurus applauded softly.

  ‘Yes, you’re the real brains. So, having heard about this place you came here and found yourself a mine owner who was single, wormed your way into his affections and persuaded him to marry you.’

  She nodded.

  ‘I made him happier than you can imagine, Tribune. If only for a short time.’

  ‘Until you had him killed and took over his business.’

  She shrugged.

  ‘Mining’s such a dangerous way to earn a living. And he had no family you see, so there was no-one to dispute my claim to the mine. Besides, by that point I was already gracing Procurator Maximus’s bed with my decorous presence, so all that tedious nonsense about the laws of inheritance could safely be ignored. After all, how else do you think I could arrange for my husband to die in such unexpected circumstances?’

  ‘We have to free the miners, before the men outside build up sufficient strength to break in. That gate’s not strong enough to withstand a serious attack.’

  ‘And yet if we do set them free, they’re likely to tear us to pieces.’

  Marcus grimaced at the truth in Cattanius’s words.

  ‘So we either find a way to get out without being battered to death by the men we’re here to free, or we have to turn them loose and take the consequences.’

  Marcus looked about him, seeing a row of a dozen barracks buildings enclosed by the palisade’s twelve-foot-high circle of half-logs, the split tree trunks presenting their flat surfaces to the raiding party.

  ‘There’s no way to climb that.’ Shaking his head, he turned back to his comrades in time to see a bloodied Lugos push his way out of the guard house’s doorway. ‘Cattanius, it’s on you whether we get away with this or not. Get searching for a way out. The rest of you, with me. We’ve got to leave them enough weaponry out for them to fight off the men at the gate, and that means opening the tool stores. Lugos, smash open everything I point at.’

  The beneficiarius hurried to the far side of the camp, looking for any sign of another exit from the trap into which they had forced themselves, muttering under his breath at the lack of any obvious answer.

  ‘Nothing, no handy little gates to slip through, no need for the builders to leave a hidden exit route in a prison wall . . .’ He pushed at one of the split tree trunks that composed the curved wall that enclosed the camp, shaking his head at its solidity. Running his hand down the wood as far as the ground, he found the thin space between wood and turf where the builders had dug a deep hole in which to anchor the log, and hadn’t bothered to completely fill the resulting gap. Pulling out his dagger he ran the blade along the fingertip-wide space until he reached the next log, encountering sudden resistance from the soil packed around it. Looking up, he realised that the split tree trunk was secured on either side by wooden battens that were nailed across the joins between them.

  ‘Got you!’

  He hurried over to Marcus.

  ‘I’ve found the back door, but I’ll need him to open it.’

  The Roman looked at Lugos, hooking a thumb at the Briton.

  ‘Lugos, help Cattanius. How long will you need?’

  The beneficiarius shook his head.

  ‘That depends on him. Perhaps fifty heartbeats. But if I open the hole too quickly the boys outside will realise what’s going on and be there to meet us.’

  Marcus thought for a moment, looking at the heavy tools which his comrades had scattered across the ground before the barracks, having used Lugos’s immense strength to smash open the stores in which they were secured. The miners had realised that something was happening, and the noise from inside their barracks was growing as men hurled themselves fruitlessly at the barred doors and windows.

  ‘We’ll open one barrack once you’re ready to do whatever it is you’re planning, and they can do the rest of the work on their own. Just make sure you can get this fence open quickly enough, or we’ll be the first men they lay hands on. And from the sound of it they’re not in the best of moods.’

  Cattanius led the rest of the party back to the wall, explaining what it was he had in mind.

  ‘This log’s not been sunk into the ground, just stood on the earth and nailed to the trunks to either side. So, all we have to do—’

  Lugos stepped forward and swung his hammer, turning it to present the hooked blade that o
pposed the heavy iron beak, already black with blood. The first of the two battens that held the log in place nine feet above the ground splintered under the blow, and a second swing of the hammer tore away its companion to leave only the two at knee level intact.

  ‘Wait.’

  Running for the corner of the barracks the beneficiarius sprinted to Marcus, who was watching calmly as the palisade’s main gate rocked under a succession of blows from the other side.

  ‘I hope you’re ready. That gate isn’t going to hold for much longer.’

  Cattanius nodded at the barrack’s lock.

  ‘Do it!’

  As he ran back to the palisade, Marcus and Dubnus lifted the second of the three thick wooden bars that secured the barrack’s entrance out of its brackets, throwing it aside as the men inside heaved against the doors and provoked a creaking tear in the sole remaining bar. With a crash of splintering wood one of the palisade gates was smashed open, a stream of infuriated Germans storming through the gap and goggling at the corpses of their fellows scattered around the archway. Sighting the two men outside the last barrack in the row of buildings, they charged down the line, and Dubnus pointed at the remaining door bar as the miners inside heaved at the rapidly failing barricade.

  ‘It’s about to break! Run!’

  They turned tail and followed Cattanius, rounding the barrack’s corner just in time to watch as Lugos swung his hammer to smash the remaining battens holding the log in place. A sudden roar of voices told them that the miners were free, and an instant later, as the log toppled away from the palisade to leave a gap large enough for the raiders to escape through, the screams and howls of a pitched battle began.

  Gerwulf panted up the wall’s steps at the head of his bodyguard, standing on the rampart’s fighting platform with his chest heaving from his run down the valley.

  ‘Where’s this damned cohort then, eh Hadro?’

  His deputy pointed out into the darkness at a line of flickering lights.

  ‘There, Prefect!’

  The German followed the pointing hand and stared out across the valley’s darkness, feeling his sense of unease growing as he stared at distant flames, his voice suddenly acerbic as he realised what it was he was seeing.