The half-dozen men trotted their mounts along with each man set to watch an arc of terrain to ensure continual vigilance in all directions, and they rode in silence for the most part, still conscious of the clash of wills between their officers earlier in the day. After an hour or so Double-Pay Silus whistled softly, pointing at the ground before them with his spear.
‘Tracks. Lots of boots.’
Marcus stopped his mount to look at the focus of his deputy’s attention. The ground before them was thick with the imprints of the tribesmen’s rough leather boots; every one pointed east.
‘Any idea how long ago they passed?’
Silus shook his head with a faint smile.
‘Could have been any time in the last few days, this ground’s been damp enough to hold a mark for weeks now…’
Arminius dropped his bulk from Colossus, squatting to poke an exploratory finger into one of the bootprints.
‘These prints are new, less than a day old. See the sharp edges? I’d say these are the men we’re looking for. They were in a hurry too, the stride length tells me that they were running.’
Marcus looked about him before turning back to Silus.
‘I think we should concentrate our attention on the front now. How far from the fort are we, do you think?’
‘No more than five miles. We could work our way round to the north-east, there’s a nice thick wood on a hill that’ll hide us from anyone watching from the fort’s walls. That’s where I told Decurion Felix that we should regroup.’
Another hour’s careful approach brought them within sight of the fortress town, its walls and gates apparently still intact. Leaving the rest of the party to wait in a thick copse of oaks, Marcus, Arminius and the double-pay slid quietly through the trees until they had a clear view of the settlement. Silus shook his head unhappily, staring at the fort’s thick stone wall that loomed over the vicus’s houses and shops, clustered around its sturdy main gate.
‘If they realise we’re out here, all they’ve got to do is stay in there with the gates shut, and we’ll be reduced to starving them out.’
Marcus stared intently at the walls, searching for any sign of life.
‘They might already have been and gone.’
Silus shook his head with the certainty of experience.
‘Not likely. There’d be some movement in the vicus if they’d already pushed off, even if it was only a few survivors. As it is I’d imagine that they’re busy drinking themselves stupid and screwing the arse off anyone who was stupid enough not to have run while the going was good. There’ll have been more than a few of those poor bastards that reckoned it was a better gamble to stay with their homes and businesses.’
Marcus looked up at the sky.
‘It’ll be dark before we can get the infantry here, but we could at least make sure that Tribune Scaurus knows what’s going on, and work out what to do tomorrow. You stay here, and make sure that Felix keeps his men out of sight when they turn up, and I’ll head back down the road until I find the detachment. Come on, Arminius.’
‘Gods below, what are they up to now?’
Tribune Licinius watched with disquiet as the Venicones veered from their steady march northwards, the warriors at the warband’s head turning their path almost to the west in the space of a few seconds. The decurion alongside him shook his head in disgust.
‘They’re making for the bridge over the River Tefi, sir! Either they’ve been biding their time, or someone inside that bloody nest of rats has grown a brain.’
Licinius stared at the mass of warriors, his mind racing.
‘Yesterday I wondered if I’d seen Calgus in their ranks. And today a body of men that has to date acted without any sign of understanding the ground they’re stamping under their feet is suddenly making moves that look suspiciously as if they know where they’re going. I wonder
…’ Shaking his head decisively, he turned to his first spear. ‘Well, we’re not just going to sit here and watch them dig their way out of this hole, not after all the effort we’ve spent pushing them into it. Send three squadrons forward to gather firewood and prepare the bridge over the Tefi for burning if they get within a mile of it. I’d rather have to rebuild the bloody thing than watch them make their escape over it and then put it to the torch to stop us from following.’
The decurion saluted and turned away to issue his tribune’s orders, and Licinius glanced over his shoulder, searching for the handful of men that were never far from his side, waiting their turn to carry his words across the empty landscape.
‘Messenger!’
The warband seemed to be moving faster than had been the case during the long weary morning, as if some fresh purpose were invigorating the warriors, urging them to accelerate their pace across the rolling ground between them and the river. They surged forward, passing the burned-out wreck of Yew Tree Fort and splashing through the stream that skirted its walls in their determination to reach the river. The Petriana’s riders paralleled their path, the leading decurions nervously calculating the distance between the leading tribesmen and the bridge for which they were driving until, with less than a mile left for the warband to run to the crossing, the lead squadron’s trumpeter blew three notes long and hard, the signal for the bridge to be fired. A moment later the first smoke rose into the clear sky above the crossing, quickly darkening into a black plume as the fire took a grip on the structure’s old timbers.
Licinius watched intently, muttering to himself as he waited for any sign that the Venicones understood the renewed depth of their predicament.
‘So, what will you do now, eh? You can’t go north, not with a river in the way, and south would be suicide, so it’s either east or west. Come on, let’s be…’
He fell silent as the warband, with a ragged cheer that was audible at a quarter of a mile distant, turned north and drove towards the river, seeming to slump into his saddle as he realised what had just happened, shaking his head as he turned to the senior decurion sitting alongside him.
‘Balls! Well, that settles one thing, there’s no doubt in my mind that Calgus has found some sort of home with the Venicones. First they make a lunge for the bridge and encourage us to burn the damned thing out, and now they’re running for the river like fifteen-year-olds on a promise.’
The decurion nodded with a wry smile.
‘Yesterday’s disaster hasn’t made the barbarian bastards any less sharp, then. Perhaps we should start running for another crossing place. I can’t see them allowing us to use whatever handy little ford he’s leading to them.’
The tribune sent ten squadrons, two-thirds of his remaining strength, away to the east to seek a point where they could ford the river and renew their pursuit of the Venicones, then led the remaining five in their close watch on the barbarians as they ran towards the point that had clearly been their objective since their initial change of direction earlier in the day. Eager to ford before the cavalry could get men across the river to resist their crossing, the tribesmen had their heads up and were running hard, the occasional man falling behind to be executed by the following cavalrymen, but the remainder covering the short distance to the river in a matter of minutes. Licinius watched with disgust as the tribesmen made their way across the ford, each man stopping to fill his water skin as the mass of barbarians made good their escape from the trap into which he had so carefully driven them. Something caught his eye, and he sat back, shaking his head in disgust.
‘And just to add insult to injury…’
He pointed at the last few dozen men crossing the shallow river, walking backwards and throwing glittering objects into the stream as they retreated towards the far bank. It was too far for him to be sure what the Venicones were scattering, but even the threat of what he was watching was enough to change the game they were playing once more, further tilting the balance of power back to the barbarians.
‘We have to assume that they’re seeding the river’s bed with tribuli, or something equa
lly unpleasant, and there’s no way I can risk losing dozens of horses to those sharp little teeth by trying to force a crossing. This ford will be unusable until it’s been swept clean again, and that won’t be getting done any time soon.’
His deputy nodded.
‘East or west?’
Licinius shook his head.
‘East. Ten miles to the nearest ford, and ten miles back again, plus whatever distance they can run in that time. They’ll be tucked up nice and snug in whatever’s left of the Three Mountains fort by the time we get back on top of them.’
‘He looks like the sort of man we need.’
Rapax turned to examine the man that Excingus was indicating, running critical eyes over the prisoner’s face and body. The shackled legionary looked bored, standing in the weak afternoon sun and waiting to be told what to do next. His arms bulged with muscle, and a long knife scar ran down one cheek beneath close-cropped black hair. The praetorian strolled across to his place in the line of half a dozen men, tapping him on the shoulder with his vine stick.
‘What did you do? And try not to make it sound like it’s supposed to be funny.’
The disgraced soldier looked down his nose at the centurion, rolling his head as if to loosen stiffness before answering.
‘I took a centurion’s vine stick and put it up his ar-’
The praetorian struck with a speed that caught the prisoner completely unawares, ramming the stick into his solar plexus so hard that the breath exploded from his body, leaving him bent double and helpless.
‘You didn’t try hard enough.’ He turned to the centurion of the guard. ‘All right, what did he do?’
The centurion, recently come on duty and only too aware from the briefing from his predecessor of the heavily wielded authority of the praetorian’s colleague, answered without any of the bombast that might otherwise have been the case.
‘He stabbed another soldier to death in a bar fight. The dead man said something that upset him, apparently…’
‘First offence?’
‘Well, it was the first one where he got caught. He’s been a right pain in the arse to the men of his century, forever pushing them around for their rations and just to show what a big man he is. He’s also suspected of having given his watch officer a beating a couple of nights ago, but there wasn’t any proof that it was actually him.’
‘Name?’
The centurion of the guard shrugged without interest.
‘No idea. I make sure they’re fed and watered, and that they get a beating if they step out of line, but none of that means I have to pretend to be their mother.’
Rapax put his stick under the prisoner’s chin, lifting his face to reveal a grimace of pain.
‘Name?’
The soldier dragged in a breath before he answered.
‘Maximus…’ He held Rapax’s eye as the praetorian stared grimly at him. ‘… Centurion.’
‘I think I’ll just call you Smartarse for the time being. Keep the manners and you may get out of here today. Why did you kill the other man?’
‘He took the piss out of my century for getting cut to ribbons by the blue-noses when some idiot sent us south without any support, then pulled a blade when I gave him a spanking. So I took it off him and stuck it in his neck.’
Rapax nodded, calculating.
‘And do you want to be freed, or would you rather rot here until your legatus comes back to hear your story? At which point he’ll almost certainly order whatever there is left of your tent party to beat you to death for your crime. Something they’ll be happy enough to do if they’ve seen battle while you’ve been tossing it off back here.’
The prisoner was clearly unconvinced.
‘And in return, I have to do what? At least here I’m not risking a barbarian spear in my guts.’
‘And in return, Legionary Smartarse, you have to join my party, and do whatever I tell you to do, whenever and wherever that may be. As it happens, we’re going north, not south, north of the Wall to hunt for a fugitive from justice. I hear tell the rebellion north of the Wall is over, so you’ll probably be safer out there than sat in here waiting for the Brigantes to break in and make you their new girlfriend. Choose now.’
He turned away, looking at the rest of the prisoners. Maximus stared at his back for a moment before speaking.
‘All right.’
‘All right what, Smartarse? Answer carefully, or I’ll leave you here with the skin hanging off your back.’
‘Sorry. Centurion. I’d like the chance to join your party.’
‘Good choice. Let’s have Smartarse here out of these irons, Centurion, he’s got some soldiering to do.’ He turned away, focusing on the next man in the line. ‘Now, what else do we have here…?’
The centurion of the guard nodded to his deputy, who busied himself releasing the prisoner from his shackles, then stepped forward and tapped each man’s chest with his vine stick.
‘Thief, thief, attempted murder… not very successfully from the look of him… rapist, and my special favourite, sleeping on guard.’
Rapax stopped at the rapist.
‘Attempted murder doesn’t look like he could pick a successful fight with my old mother, never mind collar a traitor. I don’t like thieves, and the only thing I like less than a thief is the sort of weak-chinned fool that lets his mates down by falling asleep on duty. Eh, Sleepy? Your mates will make very short work of you when they’re given the chance, and good luck to them.’ He pointed at the rapist.’ I’ll take this one, though.’
The centurion of the guard raised an eyebrow.
‘I suppose you know what you’re doing, but he’s a nasty case. Put it to a woman old enough to be his grandmother by force and then killed her, and nobody would have been any the wiser as to who the sick bastard that did it was if his good-luck amulet hadn’t been found by the body. Even now he keeps denying it. Shut it!’
Having opened his mouth to contest the centurion’s story, the rapist closed it again, his face a picture of misery.
‘See, all he does is piss and moan about how it wasn’t him, despite the fact that he left the evidence and has no alibi worth a toss. You’re sure you want him?’
Rapax smiled back at him imperturbably.
‘Yes, I think I’ll be able to find a use for him. We’ll have to call him Granny Fucker.’ He beckoned one of his men forward, indicating the two reprieved prisoners. ‘Take Smartarse and Granny Fucker to the stores and get them kitted up. Make sure they look like soldiers, and not the ragged-arsed jailbirds they so clearly are. And if the stores officer gives you any trouble, just give him the usual “you really don’t want to meet my centurion and his mate the corn officer” speech. Meet me at the north gate in an hour. And now, Varius Excingus, we’d best go and see how our wounded are doing.’
In the fort’s hospital they found a single doctor on duty, a woman who seemed utterly untroubled by their combination of muscle and bluntly wielded power.
‘I can’t release either of your wounded, Centurion, because neither of them is in any condition to be released. You can see them now, if you like, but they’ll all need at least ten days’ rest if their wounds are to heal cleanly. Now if you’ll excuse me…’
The two men exchanged glances. Excingus raised an eyebrow at the doctor’s departing back, nudging his comrade in the ribs.
‘Just the way you like ’em, eh? High spirited and ripe for breaking in?’
The praetorian shook his head with a wry expression, and waved a dismissive hand.
‘Not that one. There’d be a dozen nearly recovered soldiers in our faces if I so much as laid a finger on her. She’d be more trouble than she could ever be worth.’
His partner nodded sagely.
‘I’m sure you’re right. You’d better go and have a few words with your men, then, hadn’t you? Tell them we’ll collect them on the way south once we’ve dealt with the Aquila boy. I’ll go and do some research on the quality of the wine in the offi
cers’ mess.’
Rapax waved him away in mock disgust and strolled down the hospital building’s narrow corridor, peering into each small ward in turn until he saw a face he recognised. The guardsman in question smiled wanly at his centurion, saluting despite the fact that he was sitting in bed with heavy bandages swathing his right thigh. The centurion looked around the four beds, finding two of them vacant and the last one inhabited by a heavyset bearded man who was fast asleep, a thin line of drool staining his pillow. Rapax squatted by his soldier’s bed, keeping his voice low to avoid waking the sleeping man.
‘How are you, then, my lad? Got the arrow out in one piece, did they?’
The guardsman nodded, holding up the iron arrowhead that had been buried deep in the muscle of his thigh earlier that day.
‘Nice job she made of it, gave me some sort of honey mixture and I hardly felt a thing. Hurts a lot now, though…’ He bent closer to the centurion, beckoning with his hand to bring his officer’s head closer to his mouth, whispering despite the lack of anyone else in the room to hear his words. ‘There’s some right chatty lads in here with us. Tungrians. Wounded at some big fight in the hills a few days ago, just starting to get their wits back about them and happy to talk the day away, if a man’s willing to listen.’ Rapax nodded silently. Having enough intelligence to know when to keep his mouth shut had been part of the reason he had recruited the wounded guardsman in the first place. ‘Anyway, it seems that the lady doctor is a very close friend of one of their centurions and has been all summer, ever since he arrived from Rome. A centurion by the name of Corvus.’
Rapax raised an eyebrow in appreciation of the news, patting his man on the shoulder.
‘Very good work. I’ll make a point of coming back for you once we’ve found this “Corvus” and put him where he belongs. For now you just concentrate on getting that wound healed. You’re no use to me if you’re not fit for battle.’
Fortress of Spears e-3 Page 13