Legionary

by Doherty, Gordon

  Suddenly, the flagship’s gangplank smashed onto the dock. The bustle died, all heads turning to the noise. Brutus craned his neck to see what was happening; six towering legionaries filed from the vessel and barged back the majority of the crowd before fanning out at the lip of the dock. They wore beards and stigmas – not of Roman stock for sure, but not an uncommon thing in the army these days, he mused. The soldiers looked around expectantly.

  ‘Oh bugger, this is my cue!’ He hissed under his breath. He spun round, feverishly trying to locate the dock watchtower. Screening the sun from his eyes, he finally found it, and at once started gesticulating to the two buccina-wielding troopers, who were obviously more interested in the events on the dockside.

  ‘Pay attention you lazy…’ Brutus growled. He glanced around him, spotted a beaten staff resting against the side of a market stall and hefted it like a javelin.

  ‘Imperial business – sorry,’ he muttered at the gawping stallholder. He loosed the staff through the air and watched it sail up and straight into the chest of one of the dozing watchmen. With a high-pitched yelp, the watchman and his partner were at once alert and scouring the crowd with venomous eyes, until they found the boiling glare of Brutus. Their faces turned pale and they fumbled their instruments to their mouths.

  The buccinas blared as a group of three figures emerged from the deck of the ship. Two more tree-like legionaries flanked the equally imposing officer in the centre. Tribunus Wulfric, Brutus guessed. The stocky tribunus cut a distinguished figure in his hybrid Roman-Gothic armour. The fiery red beard and inky eyes gave him the look of a hungry predator. Not one to relish meeting on the battlefield, Brutus surmised.

  ‘Officer coming through,’ he grunted, bursting past the last line of onlookers. The party descended halfway down the gangplank as the centurion, red faced and breathless, arrived to greet them.

  ‘Ave! Acting Chief Centurion Brutus of the XI Claudia legion at your service. In the absence of Tribunus Nerva, I’m responsible for greeting and welcoming you to the City of Durostorum.’

  Wulfric smiled. ‘Ave,’ he replied with an unmistakably Gothic twang. ‘Tribunus Wulfric. Here to skim the cream of the XI Claudia!’ At this, Wulfric’s men burst into raucous laughter. Wulfric grinned, making no effort to quieten them.

  Brutus, stunned at the lack of protocol, maintained his stony expression. ‘So I understand, sir. If you’d allow me to escort you to the legion fort, we can introduce you to the other senior officers and then discuss the recruitment.’

  ‘My men and I will come to the fort later today. First we have some unwinding to do,’ he replied, nodding uphill towards The Boar and Hollybush, conspicuous by the cheering of early punters inside. This time both the men and the onlooking crowd erupted in laughter.

  Brutus prayed for the ground to open up beneath him; his first taste of command at this level and this Wulfric was treating him like a fool. Inside he boiled with rage, but he held it back just long enough to get one more sentence out; ‘As you wish, sir. In that case, I’ll invite the senior officers of the legion to join you.’

  The grin faded from the Goth’s face, and he nodded. ‘Very well.’

  Chapter 20

  A doorstop of bread thumped onto Pavo’s plate. He traced a slow glance up to the cook who had provided him with the baked monolith.

  ‘You’ve excelled yourself again, I see.’

  The cook grimaced and slapped his fist on the counter. ‘Move along,’ he hissed.

  Pavo dropped his gaze and moved on with a snigger. The next cook behind the counter waited patiently with a pitifully thin strip of cheese in his hands.

  ‘Give him some special sauce to go on it, Cyrus,’ the first cook cackled. The second cook started brutally horking up the contents of his throat.

  Pavo sighed, nodded and moved on, cheese-free. Laden with a not-so-hearty dinner, he moved along the meal-line to the wine barrels, where a queue was beginning to form. It had been a killer of a day, with another all-terrain forced march, then a gruelling session of combat training and camp construction. His limbs were still wiry but the muscles were now like gnarled rope, and despite all the pain and fatigue, he had never felt so fit. More than this, in his mind he felt so different; a real will not just to survive, but also to live. Being a freedman was good. Hard but good.

  He rested his back and head on the stock of empty wine barrels, closing his eyes, waiting for the queue to crawl along. Then a voice came to his attention above the rabble, almost as if it was inside his head.

  ‘We’re being recruited soon, so you might not get another chance,’ the voice said. ‘If you’re going to take him down tonight – and you know what’ll happen if you don’t – you’ll need my help,’ the voice continued. ‘And we need to take down that cocky bastard, Sura, too.’

  Pavo’s heart leapt and his eyes blinked open. He looked along the queue – nothing. The voice seemed to be coming from inside the wine barrels? Turning, he traced the echo of the voices; then he saw it – through the gap in the barrel-stack he just made out two shadowy forms huddled in the darkness of the corner. Spurius and Festus.

  ‘Tchoh!’ Spurius spat, his eyes darting around the canteen at the swarm of recruits. ‘Will you keep a lid on it? We’ll talk about this later.’

  Pavo felt his veins ice over as he broke from the queue. Where was Sura? His eyes shot around the mess hall. All around him, recruits were intermingled with legionaries, heckling, babbling and hooting with laughter – not a care in the world it seemed. His heartbeat tripled until at last he spotted his friend chewing happily on a piece of solid bread. Pavo tried to stroll casually to the table. He slid into the bench facing Sura.

  ‘I thought you were getting a kicking from the cooks…’ Sura trailed off and his brow wrinkled. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘We’ve got to get out of the fort tonight – or we’re dead.’

  Chapter 21

  Whoresons! Brutus screamed inside.

  Wulfric and his men were loud. Loud, arrogant and rude. And that was quite something coming from him, he thought. Certainly, the ale had helped loosen their tongues, but this was a deliberate hand in the face of the XI Claudia.

  The other Goths Wulfric had brought with him to be his centurions were a real bunch of hard men. Two had been in the western imperial guard; another had fought in Pontus as a gladiator, recruited at Wulfric’s request after he had impressed in a tournament at Trier.

  ‘Slit your throat for a follis,’ Wulfric had enthused of him, slapping the grinning man on the shoulder.

  To Brutus’ left and right, Avitus and Zosimus were seated, both still groggy from their night on the town following the return from the Bosporus mission, but the best men available while Nerva and Gallus enjoyed their trip to the capital. Brutus sympathised as Zosimus swirled his cup of water in distaste, but they had to stay lucid while these strangers drank the place dry and sobriety was probably the best way to keep a lid on Zosimus’ hair-trigger temper while Wulfric and his men hurled thinly veiled insults at them.

  Wulfric swung his bloodshot eyes round to Brutus and stabbed a finger into his shoulder. ‘So how many of your men d’you think will be fit enough for my legion?’ He slurred.

  Brutus refused the bait and turned on his finest tongue. ‘When the senior officers are back in the morning, we can discuss this detail,’ he replied as a local crashed over the table next to him, shrieking with laughter and fountaining ale over his friends, ‘in a proper environment.’

  ‘In the meantime we’ve got the grunts looking after us then, eh?’ Wulfric swept his finger across Brutus, Zosimus and Avitus. His men roared.

  Brutus again felt his heart thud. It would be interesting to see if the Goth showed the same level of disrespect to Gallus. Gallus, he mused, cold son of a bitch. But then, nobody messed with him. Perhaps a mention of the primus pilus’ name might quell the atmosphere a little. Why stop there, he wondered, dropping Nerva’s name would surely do the trick.

  ‘No, it
’s just that you’re in no fit state to talk about it now. Tribunus Nerva will be able to demonstrate the talent of our legionaries, tomorrow. As I said.’

  Wulfric pulled an expression of mock attentiveness – eyes wide. ‘Nerva? The man is a loose blade. I would be surprised if he could show me any talent, since your limitanei have been sitting in this cesspit for the last … how many years? It’s comitatenses we are looking for, soldier, not militia.’

  Brutus’ blood boiled, and he cursed himself as he felt his skin glow red as usual. The warm friendly bustle and alcoholic rabble of the inn carried on around the thick pool of tension, but inside the centurion, a torrent of rage swelled. Before he could check himself, he was on his feet, his clenched fist hammered into the table. The inn fell silent and all eyes swung onto them.

  ‘Right, you stinking whoreson,’ Brutus growled. ‘I don’t know how a runt like you has made it to the rank of tribunus of the Roman army, but it’s safe to say that on any other rank you’d be on the wrong end of the lash for that kind of talk,’ he clicked his fingers, the snapping sound reverberated in the silence, ‘like that!’

  ‘Sir,’ Avitus hissed, eyeing the gape-mouthed locals, stilled by the outburst. Brutus kept his stony stare on Wulfric, who glared in return. Wulfric’s men grinned, their hands by their sides, but their fingers writhed near their scabbards. Then, a cool draught of evening air gusted over the scene, in concert with the creaking of the wooden inn door.

  ‘Am I interrupting?’ A familiar voice boomed. Brutus dropped his stare when he saw Wulfric’s face switch into a smile. He turned to face the stern gaze of Tribunus Nerva, flanked by Centurion Gallus. ‘Care to fill me in on the details?’ Nerva continued.

  Wulfric smiled again at Nerva. ‘Your chief centurion was just telling me how ferocious the Claudia can be. Care to join us? Then we can introduce ourselves properly.’

  Nerva cast a disdainful look across the table. ‘Tomorrow, in the fort headquarters. Dawn. It would be wise to save our discussions for when we have clear heads,’ he barked. With that, Nerva nodded to Gallus, turned heel and left, as quickly as he had arrived.

  Brutus caught the raised eyebrows of Gallus as he made to follow the tribunus. It’s down to me to sort this out, he sighed. He looked over to the bar, nodding to the landlord. Then, rolling his eyes up slowly to settle on Wulfric again, he forced a smile onto his face.

  ‘Well, Tribunus Wulfric, we’ll be leaving you and your men to ready yourself for tomorrow. Your quarters at the fort are prepared for you, whenever you decide to call it a night.’

  Wulfric looked as if he had found a bar of gold. Until the bell for closing time pealed violently – three hours before actual closing time. Wulfric’s face dropped and the punters broke out into a rabble of jeers.

  ‘Oh dear, seems like it’s time to call it a night,’ Brutus spoke through a taught expression.

  As if their legs were leaden, Wulfric and his sour-faced party shuffled up from their seats and swaggered to the door.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ Wulfric called back over his shoulder.

  ‘What is all this about, sir?’ Avitus asked as the door swung shut on the emptying inn.

  Brutus remembered the garbled memo he had received from the messenger; Goths, new legions, lavish spending. ‘Politics, Avitus,’ he sighed. ‘Bollocks we don’t need to know but bollocks we have to suffer.’

  A cool midnight breeze rippled through the fort. All was silent, save for the odd cough and shuffle from the legionaries on guard duty.

  Pavo pressed himself against the cold stonework at the foot of the guard tower on the southeastern corner, his teeth clamped together to stop the chattering. Pitch and shadow danced around him on the deserted training yard, with only the pinhole canopy of starlight and the torches on the guard towers above piercing the dimness. He risked a glance around the edge of the tower to the guardhouse; no sign of Sura and the hatch-door he had gone to investigate remained locked. He strained his eyes, scouring the dull shapes to find his friend, when a snap of twigs from across the training yard jolted him back round, heart racing, fists clenched. Nothing. Only a swirling of the dark shadows behind the barrack buildings where the rest of the legion lay in their bunks. He gazed at the emptiness, determined to see what his imagination taunted him with.

  The hastily hatched plan was fragile at best; based on gossip from one of the older legionaries, the disused hunting pit in the forest appeared to be their best bet – now they just had to lure Spurius out there. What would happen next was another matter, and he couldn’t see Spurius politely agreeing to sit down and broker a truce.

  Pavo had risen from his bunk, lifted his latrine sponge and strolled from the barracks as naturally as he could manage with the eyes of Spurius and Festus following his every step. That pair were not for sleeping tonight. The icy night chill danced around the neck of his tunic, and he pulled it up a little, shivering – then a hand came crashing down onto his shoulder.

  ‘We’re all set, the guards have moved off to the corner towers. Move!’ Sura hissed.

  ‘In the name of…I nearly soiled my tunic!’

  ‘You should have; it’d mean you could run faster.’ Sura hissed.

  Gulping his heart back in, Pavo scurried after his friend. The watch on the walls above had hit a quiet spot; one guard at each corner, staring out over Durostorum and the eastern cornfields respectively. Apart from that, all clear. Now it was time for action. His filthy bunk seemed like a warm paradise in comparison to this dark chill.

  Sura put his fingers to his lips as he gently slid the latch on the hatch-door and lifted it free of its lock. The door swung open in merciful silence to reveal the shadowy moonlit world outside. An audience of darkened trees waited, their leaves writhing gently in the breeze, beckoning them across the plain.

  ‘Go, now!’ Sura hissed.

  Pavo balked at the sudden urgency. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw it, a pair of human shadows haring towards them. His blood froze and a pang of terror prickled his skin. Spurius!

  Pavo fell through the doorway, bundled by Sura. As the hatch-door slapped shut, Sura only just remembered to raise a hand backwards to cushion it closed. As soon as it stilled, a clenched fist from inside punched it open again.

  ‘Come on!’ Pavo hissed, grabbing at Sura’s forearm and stamping at the fingers of the rogue hand. The two set off across the open ground, speedy but silent, towards the trees. Behind them, they heard a dull thud of footsteps. They simultaneously burst into an upright sprint, abandoning stealth.

  ‘Oh, bugger!’ Sura croaked. ‘Don’t look round!’

  Pavo fought the fear and focused straight ahead, burying the urge to roar to the wall guards. In the forest, he had a chance of escape. He bit his bottom lip hard and tasted the metallic wash of blood as he willed his limbs onward. The branches reached out to him, only a hundred paces to go, when a frustrated growl from behind accompanied a sharp whirring and then a spinning training sword scythed past his ear.

  ‘In the name of…’ he yelped. They were only paces behind. He crashed into the thick mass of branches closely followed by Sura. The drop in speed felt like hitting a stone wall as the foliage rallied against them, rebounding to push them backwards then shackling them as they drove into its mass for what seemed an eternity. Scratched all over, they stumbled out onto a clearing and a faint track.

  ‘You’re dead, Pavo!’ Festus croaked as he fought through the foliage, only an arm’s length behind, his breath clouding over Pavo’s shoulder.

  ‘Which way?’ Sura cried, darting his eyes down the path in both directions.

  Panting, Pavo shot a glance at the stars; he circled his hands, ignoring the barrage of insults from behind. In the forest to the west of the fort, the old legionary had said to his friends. He saw the dim glow of Durostorum light the sky further down the path.

  ‘West – this way. Come on!’ He barked, shoving Sura forward just as Spurius ripped free of the branches and launched himself onto the path with bear-
like arms outstretched.

  ‘I can’t see a bloody thing, how do we know where it is?’ Sura spluttered, squinting at the pitch-black ground.

  ‘Just run and keep your eyes on the ground ahead!’ Pavo stretched his stride until it hurt. His eyes traced the dimness of the path – he could barely see his own feet, let alone the…

  ‘Pavo! Jump!’ Sura cried.

  The ground disappeared beneath him as his world spun and then with a dull crunch he landed, shoulder-first in a pile of animal bones. Not good, he reasoned, wincing at the sharp, stabbing pain racing through his back. He had landed right in the hunting pit. Great plan, he cursed himself. Within a single breath, two massive hulking shapes crashed down on top of him. This was bad, very bad.