Legatus Equitius came forward with the remainder of the legion later that morning, keen to understand just why the warband had been camped in so precarious a position. He found the detachment in high spirits, and his senior tribune delighted with the result. Antonius led him across the ground over which the cohorts had trampled earlier that day, up the hill fort’s slope and down into its bowl. As they crested the slope the scale of the slaughter became apparent. Legionaries were toiling to stack the barbarian dead on one side of the fort, while the wounded were squatting and lying in even greater numbers on the other. Equitius stopped to survey the scene.
‘How many of them did you kill?’
‘Four hundred and seventy-odd dead, nearly twice as many wounded.’
‘And our losses?’
The tribune’s smile told him most of the story before he even opened his mouth to reply.
‘Thirty-four dead, sixty-two wounded and a dozen of them likely to be dead before nightfall.’
Equitius stopped walking and turned to face the tribune, his eyebrows raised.
‘You killed and wounded twelve hundred barbarians for the loss of less than fifty men? I would have expected a nought on the end of our side of that tally. How did you manage it?’
Antonius smiled modestly.
I deployed the auxiliaries in front of our own men and assaulted the barbarians in the usual manner, with one small variation. The Tungrian cohort has a double-strength century of archers, and I …’
Understanding dawned on Equitius.
‘Ah … I see. The Tungrian archers. Let’s have a look at the wounded, shall we?’
They crossed the fort’s bowl and Equitius’s bodyguard fanned out with their swords drawn and shields ready, their centurion walking forward with his vine stick under one arm in an obvious show of bravado. The wounded had, for the most part, one feature in common. The legatus favoured his deputy with a knowing smile.
‘Horrible things, iron-headed arrows, when you’re not wearing armour and a decent helmet, but lethal if you’re caught in the open without a nice thick shield. A sound idea, Antonius, very fine work. Clearly you’ve been hiding your talents from me these last few months … eh?’
Antonius thought quickly.
‘I can’t take all the credit, Legatus. It was Prefect Scaurus that first mentioned the existence of his archers to me …’
Equitius smiled easily.
‘Quite right, Tribune, credit where it’s due.’
‘I stationed men all around the fort once the fight was properly started, took almost three hundred prisoners.’
‘You took prisoners?’
The tribune gave his superior a careful glance.
‘I thought you’d want to know what they were doing here, so I took the liberty …’
Equitius nodded his agreement.
‘Where are they?
‘I’ve got a couple of centuries guarding them back at the camp, sir. I thought it best to separate them from their wounded, given that we’re treating them in the usual manner.’
Equitius nodded again.
‘Battlefield rules?’
‘Yes, sir. The senior centurions are making the assessments. Given that we’ve got such a small number of wounded the legion medics are getting plenty of arrow removal practice on the easier cases, but anyone that won’t be able to walk away from here is being taken over the fort’s wall and put to the sword.’
Equitius shrugged, watching another seriously wounded man being carried up the earth wall by a pair of legionaries.
‘They’re all going to die, whether now or later. And now I’d best get over to your camp.’
‘Yes, sir. You’ll be wanting to question their leader?’
‘You got their chieftain alive? Well, well, Tribune. In the words of a legatus I served under on the German border, it’s as good to be lucky as it is to be good. And you, young man, having called down the iron rain on these poor fools and still pulled their leader unharmed from the wreckage, you can truly consider yourself to be a lucky man. Yes, I very much want to meet the murdering bastard, but before I do I’ve a more important appointment to keep.’
Equitius strode into Scaurus’s tent fifteen minutes later to find prefect and first spear waiting for him.
‘Gentlemen … you knew I was coming?’
The prefect smiled tightly, tapping his right ear.
‘It’s not hard to guess when a senior officer is likely to appear through the tent flap when one can hear a succession of centurions shouting at their men to stand to attention, all the time getting steadily closer. It was either going to be you, Legatus, or the governor. And Ulpius Marcellus isn’t one for venturing out into the camp.’
The legatus smiled wryly.
‘Very clever. Nearly as clever as that trick you pulled on those poor barbarians you had young Tribulus Corvus and his Syrians use for target practice this morning. My broad stripe had a decent go at taking credit for the idea, cheeky young sod, but it was pretty evident he wouldn’t even have known you had any archers on the payroll, much less that they’re led by a man who can’t be allowed out into the countryside without him finding some novel way of bringing death to the blue-noses …’
He caught the look in Scaurus’s eye.
‘You look less than happy, Prefect. Am I to presume …?’
‘That I’m aware of your little secret with regard to my officer, Legatus? That I have already sought to minimise his exposure to those people likely to be looking for him? Or, perhaps, that I’m just a little concerned that this latest success, necessary though it was for the survival of my command, will bring the interest of the wrong people down on us all like flies on fresh shit. That would be “yes” to all three. Sir.’
Equitius turned away, hiding a momentary smile.
‘So you’ve already taken young Corvus under your wing, eh, Prefect? And why would that be, when everyone from the governor down tells me that you’re as straight as the road from Dark Pool to the banks of the River Abus? You’re supposed to be imperial through and through, Prefect, so why dirty your hands with our fugitive’s sordid scrabblings to avoid justice, eh?’
Scaurus put both hands on his hips. His tongue played on his bottom lip as he judged the right answer to give to a man who was, for all the tension in the air, still his superior.
‘Why, Legatus? Because I see myself in him, and if you want to see behind that statement you’ll be a long time waiting. That and the persuasive case my first spear made for the man’s capacity for battle. He’s …’
‘… simply worth saving, eh, Prefect? Those were the words that came to me when I asked myself what in Hades I was doing sheltering him from the throne’s hunting dogs while I was in your shoes. But now we have a larger problem than our own ability to combine our obedience to the empire with loyalty to our ideals, do we not?’
Scaurus nodded unhappily.
‘Indeed we do. There’s a man less than two hundred paces from here who hates my guts with a passion I doubt either of you can comprehend, and who has a very good idea that Tribulus Corvus has found refuge with this cohort. I can assure you that for all the imperial favour that unearthing such a fugitive would bring him, it would give him nowhere near as much enjoyment as seeing me unmasked as his protector.’
The cohort awoke to mist and drizzle the next morning, took a hasty breakfast and prepared to stand to in the grey morning light. Marcus dressed in his tent attended by Antenoch and a sleepy Lupus, tucking his tunic into his woollen campaign trousers. The garment was a comfort permitted by the first spear only when the cohort was in the field late in the campaign season, a time of the year known for its wind and sudden rain.
‘I’ll never get used to wearing these blasted itchy things. All those years reading that trousers are the mark of the barbarian, and suddenly I can’t go outdoors in anything other than high summer – or whatever passes for summer here – without them.’
Antenoch muttered his response into the pile of hi
s officer’s equipment.
‘I can see how your delicate legs would enjoy the protection, Centurion. Would you like the leg wrappings too?’
A look passed between them, and Marcus snorted gently, a half-smile creasing his face.
‘Don’t mock the afflicted, Clerk, and pass me those socks and my boots.’
He tugged the heavy woollen socks into place, tucking their open ends under his feet as he laced up his polished hobnailed boots. Streaks of mud decorated their gleaming leather, betraying the lack of any attention the previous evening.
‘We’ll move this morning.’ Antenoch brushed an errant horsehair back into place in Marcus’s helmet crest and placed it on his bedroll. ‘You don’t get this many troops in one place without the boys in bronze wanting to march them aimlessly round the countryside. It’s their way of convincing themselves that they’re doing something meaningful.’
Marcus pulled on his padded leather arming vest, meant to protect the wearer’s flesh from being cut by his mail’s rings if they were struck by sword or spear, carefully pulling it straight to ensure that it wouldn’t wrinkle and chafe under the armour.
‘There’s still a warband out there, or perhaps you’d forgotten that? We’ll be advancing to make contact with the enemy.’
His clerk snorted.
‘I’ll put down ten to your five that our glorious leaders don’t have the first clue where the blue-noses are hiding. “Somewhere in the forests to the north-east” is about the limit of their intelligence, so once again we’ll get to go and find them the hard way under the pretence of scouting to the flanks. Lupus, help me with the centurion’s mail.’
He lifted the heavy mail shirt over Marcus’s head and pulled it down on to the leather arming vest while Lupus pulled the mail’s hem down his thighs to ensure its close fit to his shoulders. Antenoch rubbed a finger at the rings across one shoulder, holding his hand out to the child.
‘Dirty. You were supposed to brush and polish this shirt before bed last night, you idle little bugger. You want me to send the centurion on parade in dirty armour?’
He reached for the soft brush and set about the rings with vigour, the swift strokes shaking the uncomplaining Marcus from side to side as he raised an eyebrow at an unabashed Lupus. Antenoch clipped the back of the child’s head with his open palm.
‘You leave this dirty another night this month and you can kiss your purse money goodbye … what’s that?’
Starting guiltily, the red-faced boy repeated his muttered comment aloud.
‘I said there’s nothing to spend it on anyway.’
Antenoch snorted.
‘Welcome to my army, you dozy little sod. Of course there’s nothing to spend it on, this is a fighting cohort on campaign, not a tour of the wall’s honey-cake stalls. And while we’re at it I can see mud spots on those boots. The centurion can see them too, but he’s too polite to mention it …’
He shot a hand out and grabbed the boy’s ear, twisting it painfully and pulling the child close to his face.
‘You can consider this your administrative punishment. Next time it’ll be loss of pay and privileges for you, my lad. Now off with you and find your grandad, make sure he’s ready for parade and bring him here.’
Lupus ran from the tent clutching his reddened ear. Marcus raised an eyebrow.
‘Pass my belt and baldrics. You’re too hard on the boy.’
Antenoch shrugged, passing over Marcus’s officer’s heavy belt and sword harnesses.
‘And you’re all too soft on him. You’re too nice, Morban’s too busy being his grandfather and the rest of the troops treat him more like a mascot than a kid with a need for discipline. Someone’s got to act like a father for him, and in the absence of anyone else …’
He raised an eyebrow at Marcus, inviting further comment, but none was forthcoming. After an uncomfortable pause the officer held out a hand.
‘Helmet, please. Thank you.’
The centurion pulled his helmet on, tightening the leather chin strap and looking around him.
‘Looking for this?’
Antenoch held out the thick knobbly vine stick, and Marcus took it, rotating it unconsciously until his thumb found its accustomed resting place in a small indentation.
‘You’re right, as it happens. We do spoil the boy in our own ways. I suppose we’re all trying to compensate him for the roll of the dice he’s had to endure in the last few months. I take your point, though, and I’ll try to be a bit more like an officer with him, and a bit less like …’
He fell silent, and Antenoch nodded his understanding, his face softening.
‘His older brother? Don’t change a thing, Centurion, I’ll make sure that the troops give him a bit of a harder time, starting with that old bugger Morban. You just teach him how to throw iron around the way that you do, and leave the tough stuff to the rest of us.’
Marcus nodded, his eyes momentarily far away, then gathered himself and turned, stepping out into the morning’s murk, calling for Qadir. Antenoch turned his attentions to packing away the centurion’s gear, muttering quietly in the tent’s silence.
‘No, don’t change a thing, Centurion. Being his older brother might help keep you the right side of sane, given all that’s happened in the last few months.’
8
Late in the afternoon of the day after the battle of the hill fort the 20th Legion rejoined the 6th, having completed their sweep of the ground to the south of the wall, bringing with them the governor and his staff. Shortly after their arrival the Votadini chieftain was escorted into the governor’s presence by the leader of Equitius’s bodyguard, a pair of soldiers with drawn swords guarding against the unlikely chance of his being able to shed the coils of thick rope that bound him so tightly it was all he could do to walk unaided. His face was badly bruised, testament to the harsh treatment he had received from his guards since being captured, men incensed by the massacre of the Frisian cohort. Ulpius Marcellus raised an eyebrow at Equitius.
‘Do we really need the swords, Legatus? Even ignoring my unlikely contribution, there are two legates, half a dozen prefects and the same number of tribunes facing this one prisoner, who, I am forced to note, is trussed up with enough rope to restrain a prize-winning ox. What are your men going to do, cut his throat if he hops towards me in a threatening manner?’
Equitius nodded his agreement, making a subtle gesture to his stony-faced guard commander, who, with a look that spoke volumes, ordered the two soldiers out of the tent. The governor leaned closer to the helpless prisoner.
‘That’s better. Who can focus when there’s sharpened iron six inches from the back of his neck, eh? So, whatever your name is, do you speak any Latin?’
The prisoner nodded, his battered face defiant.
‘I am Martos, sister’s son to King Brennus of the Votadini, and I speak your language well enough. In the time before this war my tribe was a friend to your people.’
Ulpius Marcellus leant back in his chair, resting his chin on his hand.
‘Yes, I know. I was governor of this country for four years, and I came to know your tribal king Brennus tolerably well. You’ll probably be aware that we’re still in communication with him, of a sort, and that we’ve offered him peace if he can deliver us this upstart Calgus in return. I would have thought that a decent enough bargain, but now I find your people implicated in a fresh atrocity against our forces. I know you took part in the attack on White Strength, so don’t think to attempt to mislead me on the subject.’
He stared unblinkingly at the prisoner, whose shoulders slumped at the accusation.
‘We fought at White Strength. Calgus … he …’
‘Lied to you? Made you believe that you could succeed your uncle under his guidance, that you would be a strong man if you helped him to victory?’
Martos nodded, his eyes on the ground.
‘So your men led the attack on the fort, am I right?’
Another nod.
‘An
d how many of your warriors died breaking into the fort and putting the garrison to the sword? Five hundred?’
The reply was almost a whisper.
‘More. Probably twice that many …’
Legatus Macrinus spoke up.
‘With your permission, Governor? You’re telling us that you sacrificed nearly half your strength to buy this Calgus a victory, and that in return he had you and your men dumped right in the path of our cavalry response? You want us to believe that he’d be willing to throw away so much of his strength to achieve a meaningless tactical victory and then pull the fangs from what was left of an unreliable ally’s dissent? He’d have to be mad to be so profligate with his strength, unless …’
Martos lifted his gaze to meet the Roman’s, his confidence returning.
‘Yes. Unless he has more strength than you’re aware of. Spare my life and I will tell you everything I know. Kill me, and I will take secrets to my grave that might cost you this war.’
The governor scoffed, waving away the suggestion.
‘Spare your life? When I can interrogate any number of your men and discover everything I need to know without having to consort with a man that put an entire cohort of good men to the sword and then desecrated their corpses? Why don’t you just ask me to name you emperor?’
Martos kept his gaze fixed on the governor.
‘I was close to Calgus for long enough to know more about his schemes than he was willing to reveal to me. I overheard snatches of conversation I was never meant to witness, and I saw things that were meant to stay between Calgus and the men close to him. And I’ll make you one firm vow. If you free me, and enough of my people to stand around me in battle, I will hunt down Calgus for you and bring you his head. I will swear an oath to any god you care to name to take vengeance for the lies and disaster that he has brought down on my people.’
Ulpius Marcellus thought for a moment, his eyes narrowed.
‘Have this man taken away, Legatus. I think any debate on the subject should be private.’
The stony-faced centurion marched the bound prisoner from the tent, leaving the Romans looking at each other. Equitius broke the silence, shaking his head gently with wonder.
Arrows of Fury: Empire Volume Two Page 25