Ironroot (Tales of the Empire)

by S. J. A. Turney

  Varro watched him run out of sight and then turned to the other guard, standing at attention beside the tent flap.

  “Break him in, but gently. I might need him.”

  “Aye sir,” the guard saluted.

  Varro retreated inside the tent and let the leather flap fall. For a moment, he staggered, and then sank onto the edge of the bunk once more, letting his unlaced boots fall away. One of his woollen socks was crusty and dark red from where his lifeblood had pooled in his boot. That was going to take some cleaning. He briefly scanned his breeches and tunic and realised the job wouldn’t stop at his ankle. He felt unpleasant. Sleeping in his sub-armour had given him aches and pains that only added to his general discomfort, and the clothes soaked with sweat and blood had given him a smell that, he was sure, would be noticeable from a considerable distance.

  Slowly and with care, he removed the leather vest and let it fall to the floor with a thud, tiny droplets of sweat bouncing as it landed. Gently he lifted the shreds of his tunic to one side and tugged at the dressing. The sudden pain and the smell from the wound almost made him vomit and he gently toppled backward onto the bunk.

  This was no good. He couldn’t disturb the wound, but he was going to have to clean himself up and get rid of this mind-rotting smell. He began to force himself slowly upright again, when he noticed the figure standing just within the tent flap: Martis, his body servant. Relief swept across the captain.

  “Oh good. Martis, I’m very much going to need help cleaning up. I need to wash down properly without touching my dressing and wound. And I might need a bit of help getting down to the wash tent too.”

  Martis, a short and stocky bald easterner, frowned and shook his head. He was a man of few words, but as efficient and careful as they came. He’d been the most expensive servant available at the Vengen markets five years ago, but had been worth every corona over those years, and probably more. Soon Varro was going to have to raise his wage, or he’d leave for a position more sedentary and considerably less dangerous. Yes, a raise was definitely due.

  The servant pointed to the rear of the tent and, turning gingerly, Varro noticed for the first time a low steel bathtub, wisps of steam rising gently from it.

  “Prepared it while you were sleeping sir.”

  Reaching out, he gently took his master’s arm, helped him across the tent to the tub and began to remove the grimy and bloodied clothes. Varro moved as much as he dare, but in the end resigned himself to luxury and allowed Martis to finish undressing him and help him step into the tub.

  “I have to be careful not to soak my wound.”

  Martis nodded and produced a square of leather, smeared around the edge with a dark shiny substance. He slowly and carefully removed the captain’s dressing and placed the patch over the freshly sealed wound, very lightly but firmly pressing down at the edges to form a water-tight seal.

  “Propolis and waxed leather; watertight as long as we’re careful, sir”, he said quietly.

  Varro smiled and nodded. Where had Martis found bees’ glue in a temporary camp? The man really was a marvel. With gratitude, he sank slowly into the warm water and allowed himself finally, properly, to relax. He was dozing gently as Martis took away his bloodied clothes and left a fresh set on the stool nearby before retiring to the corner where he began the laborious job of repairing the three leather strops on the armoured skirt as seamlessly as possible.

  For a moment Varro panicked and splashed, and then suddenly two stocky arms were around him, gently hauling him upwards. The panic quickly receded as the captain remembered where he was and allowed himself to be helped out of the now lukewarm tub. Though he’d fallen asleep before he could scrub himself clean, the difference the hot water had made to him was tangible. He felt fresher, cleaner and considerably more relaxed.

  “Thank you, Martis. I’m actually going to attempt to dress myself, if you could just unstick this pad and put my dressing back on.”

  The body servant nodded curtly and very carefully and slowly peeled the edges of the patch away from Varro’s wound. As the skin pulled slightly taught with each gently tug, the captain clenched his teeth and grunted. He looked down at the wound as the last of the bees’ glue came away. The mark was now a straight line of purple and grey with some ancillary bruising. It looked so innocent and belied the intense pain and complication it was causing. And then it was covered with a fresh pad and linen. Somehow, Martis had also found fresh dressing material too.

  As the linen was tied off, Martis went back to his leatherwork as the captain slowly dressed, keeping every movement as slight and gentle as possible.

  As he finally settled his tunic into place and shuffled round to the bunk to take a seat and lace his boots, there was another knock on the tent frame.

  “Enter,” he called.

  Salonius, the young engineer, pushed the heavy leather flap aside and entered in full kit, sporting a white horsehair crest and his dress cloak. In his arms he carried the captain’s plated armour, recently polished. Varro smiled and reached out to his body servant for the leather under-vest. Martis stood with it, but Salonius cleared his throat and stepped between them.

  “Doctor’s orders, Sir,” he said quietly. “The chief medic gave me strict instructions that you were to travel today on one of the carts, rather than horseback, and on no account are you allowed to wear body armour.”

  Varro growled.

  “I’m an officer, boy. I need my armour to keep this rabble in line.”

  Salonius nodded slowly. “I understand that, sir, but the sergeants can get us de-camped and on the move, and you need to put as little strain on your side as possible. Doctor’s orders, sir: tunic and cloak only.”

  Varro glared at his newest guard for a moment and then seemed to arrive at a decision.

  “Very well. Let’s go out and tour the cohort while they decamp; make sure they know I’m still alive. Leave the armour. It can be packed away with the rest of my things now we’re heading back to the fort.”

  Salonius placed the armour gently on the bunk, and turned to escort his commander from the tent. As they exited into the crisp morning air, the young soldier thought he saw, just for a moment, a flicker of emotion pass across the face of the guard beside the door. Dislike, he thought; or possibly even hatred. Have to be careful around that man, he noted, memorising the guard’s face with its flinty eyes and lantern jaw.

  Taking a deep breath, Varro strode out with as normal a gait as he could manage, and began the walk down the slight incline to the tents. Salonius stayed to one side and slightly to his rear, enough to display the respect due a senior officer, yet close enough to grasp the captain should he suddenly falter.

  Varro cast his experienced gaze across the commotion as they walked. Everywhere they went, soldiers would immediately stop what they were doing and salute their commander. The more veteran among them had long since perfected the art of straightening the back and saluting with one arm whilst continuing to grip the tent rope with the other. To the untrained eye it would appear to be chaos, but to Varro all was clearly proceeding according to cohort standards. They would be ready to move within the hour. The captains would all be required to attend the post-battle meeting in the command tent, along with all the auxiliary unit commanders and the adjutants of the general staff. Injured officers would not be required to attend, for which Varro would be grateful enough to make a little libation on the altar back at the fort.

  A little further and they passed the entrance of the engineers’ compound, a palisade ring full of burly soldiers hauling ropes or carrying timber to the wagons that would transport it back to the fort. Once more, Varro clicked his tongue in irritation. Such a waste, hauling literally tons of siege equipment forty miles from the fort and not even deploying it. Shaking his head sadly, the captain turned, looping slowly round the farthest tents, and began the more exerting climb back up the slope towards his tent.

  Not far from the command tents, Varro spotted his counterpart
from the third cohort observing preparations among his own troops. Turning to Salonius, Varro gestured towards the captain of the third. “You can leave me now,” he told the young guard. ”I’ll be fine from here. Go help with packing the headquarters tent and my gear.”

  Salonius saluted and began to stride off between the last of the tents to the captain’s at the summit, while Varro slowly and carefully made his way to his comrade. The standards outside the tent had already been taken down, Salonius noted as he approached, and a number of the ropes had been unfastened. Ducking beneath a remaining line, the young guard pulled aside the leather flap and, leaning into the darker confines of the Headquarters tent, suddenly found himself dragged bodily inside.

  He took a moment after he was released to regain his footing. Glancing quickly around himself, he caught the heavy-set faces of three men, including the memorable square jaw of the guard from earlier. Yanking himself back, he pulled his tunic out of the grip of the man who had hauled him in and stood as straight as he could, raising his arms and clenching his fists tight.

  “Alright. Let’s get this over with, then.”

  Varro arrived at the muster area for the wounded. The carts were full, noisy and gave off the sickly-sweet stench of wounds, sickness and decay. One of the medical orderlies waved him over respectfully. The captain walked carefully across to him, took one look at the meagre space in the cart and shook his head.

  “There is not a hope; not a chance in three hells of you getting me on that cart. Scortius or no Scortius, I’m taking my horse.”

  He turned his back on the protesting orderly and strode away from the carts to where the Fourth were busy performing their last minute checks before the return journey began. He strode over to the collection of white crests gathered around the horses at the head of the column. A quick head count revealed the command guard of the second cohort to be a man short. As he approached, they moved fluidly into two lines of seven, came to attention and saluted in unison. Varro nodded his acknowledgment and scanned the lines for Salonius. Perhaps he was attending to something before assembly and… no; there he was. So who was missing?

  The captain glanced once more up and down the lines and allowed his gaze to settle on his newest guard, noticing for the first time the faint purple and brown of a sizeable bruise blossoming slowly around his left eye. With a frown, his eyes wandered among the other guards, this time paying close attention. Two more of them sported facial bruising.

  “I’m not going to ask what went on, but I’m a man down, and I want to know where he is.”

  There was a moment’s silence, then someone from the second row cleared his throat.

  “Gallo had to go see the medic, sir, for stitches. He’ll be back in a few minutes”

  Varro grumbled and allowed his frown to deepen.

  “As if there aren’t enough barbarians out there waiting to give you all a damn good thrashing, you have to go beating your own to a pulp. Get your horses saddled and ready. We leave in ten minutes, with or without Gallo.”

  Still grumbling to himself, the captain spun and headed for his own horse, already saddled and being tended to by his servant who would travel with the baggage train at the rear. As soon as their officer was out of sight, the guards stood at ease and the man beside Salonius turned his head slightly, giving the shorter, younger recruit a sidelong glance up and down.

  “You fought off three of them?”

  Salonius nodded, concentrating on a point in the middle distance.

  “Maybe you do deserve the crest.” The soldier turned away, his plated torso armour scraping Salonius’ as he went.

  “Short and young does not necessarily mean weak and frightened”, Salonius grumbled to himself under his breath and from between clenched teeth. The engineers were happy enough with new recruits as long as they could handle a mallet and haul on a rope, but the command guard were supposedly the cohort’s best, and were paid accordingly. It would take some time to settle in here and turn their resentment into respect.

  With a sigh, he turned and looked at the horse he’d been given. He’d ridden a horse a few times, years ago, but not since joining up; engineers used horses for transporting equipment and for labour, not for riding. It was already saddled and waiting. With a disbelieving shake of his head, Salonius walked over to the horse.

  The column had been rumbling across the landscape for half a day, the immense cloud of dust thrown up into the air by an entire army on the move making the beautiful azure blue sky somewhat difficult to see. The adjutant and the senior staff, along with the flag and standard bearers, rode as the vanguard, in the clear and open air. Behind them came the various ancillary officers, camp staff and the like, followed by the six cohorts themselves in numerical order and finally the engineers and the baggage train, slowly grinding away the miles.

  Some half a mile behind the column came the army’s provosts with the prisoners taken the previous day, staggering along in three lines, chained together to be ransomed, sold or executed at the marshal’s whim later.

  Varro sat astride his horse at the head of the second, blinking regularly to keep the dust from his eyes and wincing with every step of his horse. After only an hour of travel, he’d realised why Scortius had wanted him in a cart. By the second hour, his wound had begun to leak again slightly and, though it was a seep rather than a flow, by now, nine hours into the journey, his left leg was soaked with crusty dried blood and coated with dust. When they finally reached the fort it would take more than a quick dip to clean all this off.

  He glanced over his shoulder at the command guard of the second, fifteen now off-white crests in three lines of five, riding silently behind him. With a quick motion to the guard to continue on as they were, he wheeled his horse and gently walked it out of the column, continuing a hundred yards or so until the cloud of disturbed dust swirled behind him and he could breathe fresh, untainted air. The summer sun shone down on a verdant green landscape, quite beautiful even with the disturbances of thousands of marching boots; a landscape most of the column would barely see through the dust.

  Stopping his horse, the captain took several deep, clean and satisfying breaths. Perhaps he should request a break in the march? As he sat astride Targus, his bay colt, scanning the hills to the west, his eyes caught a brief sign of movement. Suddenly alert, he strained and focused on the shapes and slowly they swam into focus: perhaps a dozen or so riders. Some were clearly armoured, glittering in the sun. And then he saw the flag being borne by one of the riders, and recognised the black banner with the silver ram and bolt of lightning. With a sigh of relief, he kicked his horse into a trot once more and set off at a tangent to intercept the approaching riders, safe in the knowledge that no barbarians would be stupid enough to try a ruse against such a large armoured column. Besides, they’d broken the back of the local tribes yesterday.

  As the party of a dozen riders slowed to a trot and hauled on the reins to pull alongside Varro and his mount, he recognised the pale face of Corda, his second in command, covered by his helmet and partially hidden behind the bandana pulled up across the lower half and hiding the thick, black beard. The dozen men were the second cohort’s contribution to the prefect’s honour guard. As Varro drew his steed to a halt, the riders also stopped, saluting their commander wearily. Varro grinned as his second in command untied the bandana, revealing the yet paler skin of his lower face, framed with his dark beard and untouched by the dust of travel. Corda, never a man given to frivolity, displayed his usual scowl, which deepened as he spotted the dried blood encrusting his superior’s leg.

  “Sergeant,” Varro greeted him happily, “a sight for sore eyes, if ever there was one.”

  Corda’s intense pale blue-grey eyes bored into the captain’s, carrying an air of disapproval.

  “Captain,” he said at last, his voice surprisingly low and soft. “What the hell have they done to you?”

  Varro shook his head. “It’s not bad, Corda. Scortius has sorted it, but I’ve sort
of bounced it open on the horse.”

  The sergeant opened his mouth to speak again, his eyes flashing angrily, but Varro interjected before he had the chance.

  “Scortius did a good job, Corda, and I know I should be in the wounded carts, but I’d rather this than have to sit among the stench of serious injuries for a day or two, so forget about it.”

  The sergeant sat still and silent for a few seconds, his eyes locked on his commander’s, until he was sure his point was made and his opinion noted.

  “Very well sir. Permission to dismiss the guard?”

  Varro nodded, and the sergeant turned and waved at the other riders, who saluted once again and then rode off past their officers to join their companions in the cohort’s cavalry squadron. As soon as they were out of earshot and sight of the two commanders, Corda’s attentive position relaxed and he slumped wearily in the saddle.

  “Ok, Varro. Tell me everything, including how the hell you ended up in this state.”

  The captain sighed. Corda was the quintessential sergeant among the cohort and the linchpin around which the unit moved, but on a personal level, the two had come up through the ranks together so many years ago that it was impossible now to feel any level of superiority over him when the two were alone. And, of course, Corda knew him perhaps better than he knew himself.

  “I was unlucky. That’s all there is to it. I saw some barbarian bastard with a nice sword he’d stolen from an Imperial officer and I took it personally. Seems he did too. The doctor wasn’t concerned and the medics all reckon I’ll be fine in a few weeks. Now you need to tell me what you’re doing here. You’re supposed to be in Vengen with the prefect.”

  Corda nodded wearily and shrugged his shoulders, allowing the interlocking plates of his armour to settle into a new and slightly more comfortable position. The standard Imperial kit was highly protective and certainly better than the chain mail the army had once worn, but it left a great deal to be desired when on horseback.