Altar of Blood: Empire IX

by Anthony Riches

  ‘You crafty bastards …’

  Lowering himself carefully to the ground he ran back down the hill, hurdling fallen trees and kicking up leaves, stopping in front of his men breathing hard from the exertion.

  ‘You said that the two young gentlemen rode down to the dockyard yesterday. Tell me what happened again.’

  The man who had tailed Marcus and Varus south from the city the previous day shrugged.

  ‘When they got there they just walked along the dockside like two men out for a stroll. One of the ship’s captains hailed them and they had a few words, but that was all. After that they did a round of the ship shed like they were on an outing and then made their way back to the barrack. Like I said at the time, Decurion, nothing out of the ordinary.’

  ‘And when they came back from the port?’

  The trooper shrugged again.

  ‘I watched their barrack all day from the empty one next to it. They stayed in it all afternoon, then went and joined their tribune for a couple of hours. Eventually a pair of soldiers delivered a message of some sort and the officers went back to their own barracks.’

  Dolfus stared at him for a moment.

  ‘These messengers. Were they about the same height and build as the young gentlemen in question?’

  The man he’d set to watch Marcus and Varus frowned in concentration.

  ‘Yes, I’d say they were.’

  Dolfus sank to the ground and lay on his back looking up at the clouds towering up into the sky above him.

  ‘So while they’re down at the docks someone knocks a hole in the wall between the officers’ quarters and the room next to it. Then when they get back from their outing they switch uniforms with a pair of soldiers who match them for size and while the decoys held your attention they were free to climb through the hole into the barrack next door and then go wherever they wanted as common soldiers. Clever. What better way to have a discussion that they didn’t want witnessed?’

  He got back onto his feet.

  ‘You two, stay with the horses, you two come with me! Quietly now!’

  The decurion eased into the cover of the trees, weaving through their thick trunks with his accomplices close behind. Something made him look over his shoulder, and he ducked into the cover of the nearest oak, gesticulating frantically to his comrades to do the same. The morning sunlight’s mist-hazed brilliance dimmed a little as a wall of wood slid past their hiding place, close enough for the lapping of the river’s water against the ship’s tarred side to be audible. Raising his head the decurion watched as the vessel passed their hiding place barely twenty paces distant, making out the name painted on her stern.

  ‘Mars.’ He looked at the man crouching next to him. ‘Was that …?’

  The trooper nodded, understanding dawning on him.

  ‘The name of the ship whose captain had a good old chat with those two centurions? Looks like it.’

  The decurion nodded to himself, his lips twisting in wry admiration.

  ‘It seems that our master has somewhat underestimated the resourcefulness of these Tungrians. Come on, let’s get a bit closer, and see if we can see or hear anything to reduce the sting of being left sitting here like fools while they sail away to who knows where.’

  As Arminius stared in the direction that Scaurus was pointing he saw a shape resolve itself out of the mist. Rendered ghostly by the drifting vapour, a warship was sailing slowly down the river’s western bank, her tiered oars furled up against her sides as the river’s current pushed her gently downstream.

  ‘This is what we’re waiting for?’

  Scaurus nodded without taking his eyes off the vessel.

  ‘That’s our ride. This, my friend, is where we simply vanish off the map. Centurion Varus!’

  The young aristocrat rose from the cover of the trees and made his way down to the river’s bank, waving a hand at the oncoming vessel, which was now close enough for her identity to be clear. Varus lowered his hand as the ship coasted towards him on the river’s current, turning back to Scaurus with a broad grin.

  ‘That’s my cousin alright, see him in the bows? The man with the red hair?’

  Standing on the vessel’s prow, the officer in question clearly had a hands-on approach to the task of command, bellowing orders back to the men on the steering oars in a manner that left little doubt as to who was in control of the vessel. His voice reached them across the water as he shouted another command over his shoulder.

  ‘Oars!’

  The rowers responded with commendable speed and precision, dropping their wooden blades from their furled position to sit level with the river’s glassy surface.

  ‘Ready …’

  The blades rotated, ready for the next order.

  ‘Back! Water!’

  With the perfect synchronisation of long practice the oarsmen dipped their blades into the river as one, executing a series of swift, efficient strokes that took the way off the vessel and left her drifting towards the bank at a slow walking pace.

  The commander roared another order, reinforcing it with a swift pointing hand gesture.

  ‘Stern anchor!’

  The ship drifted a dozen paces and then stopped, held in place by her anchor. Her commander turned to the waiting Tungrians, shouting a greeting down to Varus.

  ‘You see Gaius? I told you I wouldn’t let you down! Have your men pull us in as close as possible and let’s get you fellows aboard!’

  The Tungrians’ axemen nudged each other and guffawed in amusement at his patrician accent, but hurried to grab the ropes thrown ashore as their chosen man Angar bellowed orders and imprecations at them, swiftly dragging the ship in towards the bank until she touched bottom, close enough for boarding ladders to be lowered into the shallow water. The captain looked down at the detachment as they pondered the muddy water between ship and shore.

  ‘Come on then you men, we haven’t got all blasted day!’

  Scaurus went first, wading into the river and climbing up the closest ladder, to be greeted by the ship’s commander as he climbed over the side.

  ‘Tribune Scaurus, it’s good to meet you after what I heard about your exploits in the east from young Gaius here when I met him in the city last night!’

  Scaurus stood bemused as his hand was shaken vigorously by the big man.

  ‘The pleasure is mine, Prefect. And you have my thanks for entertaining this somewhat unorthodox diversion from your usual routine.’

  The naval officer barked out a laugh.

  ‘Any diversion is welcome, Tribune! There are only so many times a man can sail up and down this blasted river before ennui sets in, I can assure you of that! The most excitement we’ve had in the last month was sighting a deer on the far bank last week, and even that came to nothing when we missed the bloody thing with both bolt throwers! Ah, here’s young Gaius now!’

  He greeted his cousin over the ship’s side with a bear hug, leaving Varus red-faced.

  ‘Here he is! The black sheep of the family come good, and in no small part thanks to you, Tribune, giving him the chance to prove that he’s worthy of the family name! Any friend of my cousin’s is a friend of mine, eh? So let’s get these men of yours off the bank and be about our business, shall we?’

  With the detachment aboard the vessel he ordered the crew to pull up the anchor and cast off from the shore, turning back to Scaurus once the Mars was underway down the river.

  ‘So tell me, Tribune, where exactly is it that you want putting ashore?’

  Scaurus gestured to Gunda, who was standing by the ship’s rail with an even more lugubrious expression than usual.

  ‘I make a point of finding people who know the land intimately, wherever it is that my orders take me, and my native scout there says he knows the perfect place.’

  He beckoned Gunda across to join them, the prefect calling for his pilot, and once the three men were in animated discussion as to the location the German had in mind, sidled away to join his officers at the v
essel’s stern rail.

  ‘Well then, gentlemen?’

  Dubnus shook his head, his expression rueful.

  ‘I saw nothing, Tribune. My colleague here, on the other hand …’

  Qadir turned away from the receding beach with his customary gentle smile.

  ‘One man that I saw for certain, and enough movement besides to indicate another one or perhaps two with a little more skill at remaining concealed, if not sufficient.’

  Scaurus raised an eyebrow at Dubnus.

  ‘Which just goes to show that all those years squinting into beakers in dimly lit taverns weren’t necessarily your best choice, eh Dubnus? Did you make out any detail, Centurion?’

  Qadir shook his head.

  ‘Almost nothing, Tribune. Perhaps a momentary glint of sun on armour, but my eyes might have deceived me. I could not swear an oath on the matter.’

  Scaurus looked at Marcus, who was standing in silence alongside his colleagues.

  ‘So it looks as if your suspicion that you were followed yesterday was well founded, and a good thing that you chose not to talk openly with your cousin about our needs but met him when you weren’t under observation. It would also appear as if our old friend Decimus Clodius Albinus does indeed still secretly harbour ambitions of clipping our wings.’

  The younger man raised an eyebrow.

  ‘It’s hardly surprising, given the humiliations that his previous attempts to put you down have heaped upon him. It seems that those events have only served to fan the flame of his urge to see us dead and disgraced, and while we have to fend off his attempts time after time, he only has to enjoy sufficient good fortune to put the blade in just once. Perhaps this should be the last time he makes such an attempt …’

  Scaurus raised an eyebrow, surprised at the vehemence in the statement given the younger man’s apparent loss of vigour of recent days.

  ‘You feel that strongly that he needs to die?’

  Marcus looked out over the ship’s rail at the dark, forested hills to the east.

  ‘I’m the wrong person to ask, I’m afraid. My urge for justice has run its course, leaving me with nothing more than a feeling of emptiness at having been cursed with being the cause of so many deaths. I have killed enough men in pursuit of my revenge to know with absolute clarity that not one of them ever gave me any genuine satisfaction.’ He sighed. ‘At least not beyond the brief surge of joy to be had from spilling the blood of men who had done my family wrong. The only man I would raise a finger to kill in cold blood now is too well protected for it to be anything other than suicide, and I have a child to raise. Leaving him fatherless would be the final insult to my wife’s memory.’

  Scaurus put a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘I understand, and I would never ask you to do such a thing. But it occurs to me that the only way to stop Senator Albinus from continually plotting my early death is to arrange for his own premature voyage across the river, and it sounds to me as if you agree.’

  Marcus turned to face him, his face set in tired lines.

  ‘Tribune, if you’re asking me to condone a decision to kill the man, I can only repeat what I said before. He only has to enlist the services of Fortuna once, whereas we call upon her every time we cross paths with him. I think you know the answer to that question well enough yourself not to need me to provide it for you.’

  ‘The governor was right. That man Scaurus is slipperier than a bag full of eels.’

  Dolfus shook his head in disgust, watching as the naval vessel pulled away from the river’s western bank and got underway, the rowers working to an efficient rhythm that propelled the Mars out into the river’s channel, and away to the north at the speed of a cantering horse.

  ‘And there’s no way we can keep up with—’

  He reached up and pulled the trooper next to him down into the cover of the fallen tree behind which they were hidden.

  ‘Keep down you idiot! They’ve got Hamians with them, and those easterners have got eyes like hawks. And if they can see you then they can also put an arrow in you.’

  He leaned back against the tree’s rotting trunk with a thoughtful look.

  ‘We’ll have to let the governor know about this, and then get after them as best we can. You …’ he pointed at the nearest of his men, ‘ride back to the city and with the following message. Tell him that we saw them board a warship, the Mars, under the command of that red-haired lunatic that commands the local squadron and who presumably has some sort of connection with one their officers given the party trick they pulled on us yesterday to get some time with him unobserved. They were last seen heading north, and likely to get off the ship on the other side of the river, and that’s all we know. We’ll pursue, but that bloody ship can sail downstream a good deal faster than the horses can manage for any length of time, so we’ve effectively been left for dead. We’ll meet you at Novaesium with whatever orders he gives you. Go!’

  The trooper slithered away across the forest floor, and Dolfus lifted himself to squint over the tree’s bole, watching as the warship vanished around the river’s next bend.

  ‘They’ve fooled us alright, almost as if their tribune suspected that they might be followed.’ He shook his head with a sour expression. ‘Right, let’s get after them. Nice and easy, mind you, there’s no point exhausting the horses if we’ve no chance of catching them. They’ve got the jump on us for the time being, but if we play this right we can still find out what they’re up to.’

  ‘There.’

  The prefect followed Gunda’s pointing hand and nodded his agreement.

  ‘Couldn’t have picked it better myself. A nice little anchorage on the outside of the bend where the current keeps the water deep close in to the bank. Oars!’

  He marched back down the ship’s length barking orders, the rowers swiftly killing the vessel’s way to leave it drifting slowly into the bank’s leafy canopy. Scaurus glanced over at the western bank, looking for any sign that they were observed.

  ‘Your guide has chosen well, Tribune. The road veers away from the river’s western bank to avoid that outcrop of rock, and those cavalrymen who were following us will be miles behind us.’

  The tribune nodded at Qadir’s words, turning to Dubnus.

  ‘Take them ashore, Centurion, and give me a perimeter for fifty paces in all directions, archers leading. The rules of engagement are to be as we agreed – if anything moves, we kill it.’

  The Briton nodded and turned away, leading the detachment down the hastily lowered boarding ladders and splashing through the thigh-deep water to lead them away into the forest’s gloom. Pausing a dozen paces from the bank he looked about him at their expectant faces.

  ‘The Crescent, and just as we practised it. In pairs, keep your spacings and don’t lose sight of the men to either side. Fifty paces and go to ground, watch and listen. Archers, if we’re spotted and the man in question escapes we’re most likely already dead, and our mission over before it begins. If you see a man outside bow range you wait for him to either come closer or go away. If there’s more than one of them then you wait until they’re so close that you can get them all. The rest of you are only there to protect the archers at this point in time, so go to ground, shut your mouths and keep them shut until you’re relieved. Understood?’

  The men gathered around him nodded confidently.

  ‘Good. Don’t fuck it up.’

  He watched as they split into their predetermined groupings of archers and axemen, each pair heading away into the forest’s shadows along their allocated bearings.

  ‘All that practice seems to have borne fruit, I see? Perhaps now they can see the reason why you made them play that game so many times on the way north.’

  He turned to find Marcus and Varus at his shoulder, the latter speaking softly as he watched the Tungrians disappear into the sun-dappled foliage. Dubnus nodded grimly.

  ‘I think the game just turned serious, don’t you? We looked at the map and said, “Yes, we can
walk from the river into the heart of Bructeri territory,” but it’s not until you actually stand here on the ground that you realise just what a challenge we’ve set ourselves. We have no idea where we’ll have to go to find this woman, but what we do know is that we’ll have to walk all the way there through this. We’ll just have to hope that the Bructeri king is keeping her close at hand and not in some remote hiding place fifty miles up the River Lupia.’

  He waved a hand at the seemingly endless expanse of trees before them, directing a question to Varus.

  ‘And when we’ve found her, and presuming that we can take her from her guards, we’ll have to do it all over again to get back here, more than likely with tribesmen hard on our heels. Are you still pleased that you were so set on coming with us?’

  Before he could answer, Scaurus climbed over the riverbank’s crest and crouched next to his officers, watching in satisfaction as the detachment’s men slowly moved out into the forest.

  ‘Excellent. I see all that time spent drilling this little manoeuvre wasn’t entirely wasted. Once we’ve got the perimeter cleared you can leave the Hamians on watch while turning your axes to a little bit of tree-felling for me before we head off into the unknown. Just a precaution, but I do like to make sure the ground’s in my favour as much as possible.’

  ‘Purpose of crossing?’

  Cotta looked steadily at his interrogator with a slight smile. Having left the fortress without fanfare at dawn the previous day, it had taken his party the best part of two days to make the forty-mile journey to the bridge and its protective fortress at Novaesium.

  ‘Trade.’