Altar of Blood: Empire IX

by Anthony Riches

  He fell silent as Gernot appeared behind Cotta, easing his big body onto the bench next to him, putting a mug full of beer down in front of him and playing a hard stare around the table.

  ‘Just so there are no misunderstandings—’

  ‘You speak Latin!’

  The noble stared pityingly at Sanga.

  ‘Of course I speak Latin, you fool. All of the king’s nobles speak it, so that we can deal with the officers at the fort on the river. I only use it when I choose to, and I’m choosing to use it now so that what I’ve got to say sinks into your tiny minds. Got that?’

  The soldier nodded, keeping his mouth shut in a rare demonstration of good sense.

  ‘Good. You idiots have been luckier than you know. You …’ he pointed at Lucius. ‘You have been stealing taxes from the king for years, and presumably from all the other tribes whose men your son’s been knocking about. You may find them better informed from now on.’

  Lucius lowered his gaze to stare down at the table, slowly shaking his head as the implications of the threat sank in.

  ‘And you, trader, or whatever you really are, you’re not welcome here after tonight. The king’s merciful decision not to kill the pair of you is good until dawn tomorrow, at which point it will be rescinded. When this feast is over you can sleep here for the night and get out of Thusila first thing in the morning. If I see your ugly faces, any of you, after the sun’s above the horizon tomorrow, then you’ll wish you’d never been born. There are men of the Bructeri who would like nothing more than to see a Roman spreadeagled across an altar, with our chief priest summoning Wodanaz to witness our revenge on you for everything you’ve done to us since the first time your legions crossed the river. Do you take my meaning?’

  Cotta nodded slowly.

  ‘We’ll be sure to take your advice, Lord. I wasn’t staying here in any case, I’m looking for a priestess of whom I’ve heard stories, about how she can see a man’s future, and tell him what lies in store—’

  ‘No!’

  The emphasis in Gernot’s voice was reinforced by a heavy slap of the table with his palm, making the beakers in front of them jump.

  ‘Forget any ideas of bothering our seer with your petty concerns. She has more important matters to be considering, and the risk of any detail as to her whereabouts getting back to your people is not one the king can afford to take. We know your ways of interfering in the affairs of your neighbours, and for all I know you’re nothing more than a spy, sent to find out where she resides in preparation for some sort of attempt to abduct her. In fact perhaps I should simply take a knife—’

  The veteran raised his hands wearily.

  ‘No need, Lord. We’ll be away first thing, and I guarantee that you won’t ever see us again!’

  The German stared at him for a moment, then nodded slowly, holding the gaze until Cotta was forced to look away.

  ‘Very well. You have been warned.’

  He drained the beaker and stood up, walking away to rejoin the royal party watched by every man at the table.

  ‘I knew there was something wrong about you lot.’

  The Tungrians turned to Lucius, who was looking around the table with an expression of sudden revelation.

  ‘You’re not retired,’ he pointed at Saratos. ‘You’re too young, for one thing, and there’s nothing wrong with you that would be a reason for early discharge. And you …’ he turned to Sanga, ‘you’re every arsehole big-mouthed mule I ever served with rolled into one. And you’re not retired either. Know how I can tell?’ He paused rhetorically. ‘I can tell because you’re just as sharp and nasty as he is, in your own quiet way. Retired soldiers sit around drinking and talking about the good old days, and slowly but surely getting fat. And you don’t have an ounce of fat anywhere on your body.’

  He looked at Morban for a moment before cracking an evil smile.

  ‘And you? A trader? You’re no trader, you’re more like a bookkeeper, all percentages and calculation. More like a … a standard bearer? Not a proper standard bearer, they’re all muscles and glory, more like one of those older men who carry round the fist and discs for their century when they’re too shagged out to fight.’ When Morban said nothing Lucius grinned triumphantly at Cotta. ‘And you’re no trader either, you’ve got centurion written all over you. The way you struggled to control the urge to sneer at Gernot then was classic. I’ve fucking got you, haven’t I? You bastards aren’t trading, you’re spy—’

  He froze, as the point of a blade tickled the base of his spine.

  ‘You forget that there are six of us, Roman. He …’ Arminius tipped his head to Lugos, who had been walked into the city at the point of half a dozen spears an hour earlier, ‘is the man most likely to rip you limb from limb, if I tell him to. And I’m the man with the least regard for human life among us, having seen so much of it wasted over the years.’ Lucius twisted his head to meet Arminius’s flat stare, the blood slowly draining from his face. ‘If your boy so much as twitches a muscle at me I’ll cut his throat, here and now so that you can see him go to meet Wodanaz before you. So keep your voice down.’

  An uneasy silence reigned for a long moment, Lucius breaking the spell by placing his hands on the table in front of him.

  ‘You’ll get no trouble from me, Quadi. See, I’m not interested in handing you in to these maniacs, ’cause I know too well what’ll happen if I do, and it won’t go well for any of us ’cause they’ll just assume I’ve got some part of it.’ He shook his head, staring across the table at Cotta. ‘No, I’m offering you a trade, trader. Money for information. You want to find out where the king’s got his favourite seer hidden, for what purpose I couldn’t really give a shit, and me, I just want to get my money back. So just how much does Rome want to know that information, eh?’

  Cotta opened his mouth to reply, but the words went unheard as a commotion at the hall’s door drew their attention. A pair of uniformed Roman cavalrymen were handing over their weapons amid a hubbub of tribesmen calling out abuse and threats, their voices silenced by a sudden rapping of steel against wood. The king had got to his feet, and continued banging the table with the flat of his sword until the hall was silent.

  ‘These men have come in peace! They have surrendered their weapons and wish to impart news of the greatest importance to our people, news sent to us from Rome itself! If they offer me or the tribe any disrespect then they will forfeit my protection, but until then you will remain silent so that I can hear their message!’

  Disarmed, the soldiers approached the royal table and bowed deeply. The older of them stepped forward, addressing the king in a respectful tone that was nonetheless loud enough to be heard around the hall.

  ‘Great King, I am Decurion Quintus Matius Dolfus, sent by the governor of Germania Inferior! I thank you for your hospitality and for choosing to ignore our peoples’ differences on this occasion! In return I offer you tidings from Rome of the greatest importance! My master the governor has ordered me to warn you of an attempt to rob your royal treasury, an attempt that he believes to be imminent, and which will be perpetrated by Romans, men who have chosen to ignore the delicate balance of our current peace! Men who may even be among you now!’

  The Tungrians froze in horror at the cavalryman’s words, and as Cotta looked about him he realised that while their attention had been focused on the speaker, half a dozen armed warriors had positioned themselves behind them.

  ‘Oh fuck.’

  ‘I told Cotta to wait for you at the edge of the town, and that you would guide him back here. With a little smile from Fortuna you’ll be in and out well before dawn.’

  Gunda nodded curtly, the gesture almost invisible in the near darkness, and Scaurus turned to Qadir who was standing behind the German in silence, a pair of his archers waiting with their usual blank-faced patience in his shadow.

  ‘Accompany the scout to the edge of the forest, Centurion, and wait for him to return. If he does not return by the time it is light eno
ugh to see the town clearly then you are to return here without him, remaining undetected. And no, Centurion Varus, before you ask, you may not accompany the scouting party. What we need here are men who know how to move with stealth and subtlety, not an aristocrat with an apparent death wish.’

  Qadir saluted the tribune and gestured to the scout, following him away down the path that led to the tribal capital, barely a mile distant, while Scaurus put a hand on the young Roman’s shoulder.

  ‘If you want to do something that will help, then go and keep Marcus company. He’s not sleeping well, and I’m guessing he’s nothing better to occupy his mind than brooding on the two men he killed today. He says that he has good days and bad days, but I’d be willing to bet that the best of his nights are more of a trial to him than his worst days.’

  ‘Well this just gets better and better, doesn’t it?’

  Lucius stared angrily at the Tungrians, pointing to the bruises that were evident beneath both of his eyes even in the hut’s moonlit half-light. Where the soldiers had had the good sense to co-operate with their captors, recognising that their strong desire to inflict violence on such hated enemies was barely held in check and riding the kicks and punches that were aimed at them as they were taken from the king’s hall, Lucius had chosen to protest his innocence. With Magan rendered impotent by the threat of a dozen spear blades, his father’s protests had been silenced with swift and brutal simplicity, and they had been pushed into a stoutly built hut clearly intended for the imprisonment of offenders, under the watching eyes of the decurion who had betrayed them.

  Cotta shrugged.

  ‘You quacked at the wrong time, and as an-ex soldier you should have known better, shouldn’t you? Besides, you’ll get out from under this once the facts are clear …’ He shook his head. ‘Which is more than you can say for us. We’re going out the hard way, I reckon, unless we can find some way to get out of this shithole before dawn. Once that lot have sobered up they’ll have us away into the woods to one of their sacred groves, and that’ll be the last anyone sees of us. Unless …’

  ‘Unless what?’ Sanga lifted his head and laughed curtly. ‘Unless we manage to break down the door and do for the men they’ll have left to guard us with our bare hands?’

  ‘Door too strong. Not even Magan break.’

  The soldier looked over at Saratos with a pitying smile.

  ‘I know the fucking door’s too strong mate, I already had a good look at it.’

  The Dacian ignored him.

  ‘So if door too strong, door need open by guard.’

  Cotta and Sanga looked up at him with something close to shared amusement, but it was Morban, previously silent and seemingly lost in his own thoughts, who voiced their disbelief.

  ‘You mean we should hammer on the door and shout for help until they open it, and then we take them on with the advantage of surprise? And you really think they’ll be that stupid?’

  Sanga joined in with the standard bearer’s argument in a rare display of agreeing with the older man.

  ‘They’d come through that door with swords and spears ready for us, give us a good hiding for disturbing whatever games they’ll using to pass the time, then lock us up again, nothing changed except for a fresher and more expensive set of lumps and fewer teeth for the priest to pull out once he gets down to the serious business. Face it boy, we’re dead meat. If I had a blade I’d slit my own wrists and leave them with a smiling corpse to do their worst with.’

  The Dacian snorted.

  ‘You so bothered, you kill self with teeth.’

  ‘With my fucking teeth?’

  Lucius nodded sagely.

  ‘We used to have the same discussions when I was a legionary. What’s worse, to have your eyes pulled out, your ears and nose cut off, not to mention your cock and balls, and then some dribbling old bastard take an age to get your heart out, all while a pack of mad German cunts scream at you and spit in your face.’

  Sanga frowned.

  ‘Or what?’

  ‘Or show some balls and do the job yourself.’

  The Briton shook his head in bemusement.

  ‘I know. But with my teeth? How does that work?’

  Saratos sank into a sitting position.

  ‘Is easy. Is blood here …’ he pointed to his arm, just above the crease of his armpit. ‘You bite, hard enough to find blood, and the rest easy. Just lie down, go sleep.’

  Morban nodded.

  ‘To be fair, I’ve heard the same, more or less.’

  Sanga looked about him aghast.

  ‘You’re all fucking mad! I’m not going out by biting myself to death, I’ll fight the bastards and make them put me to the sword.’

  ‘Except they won’t. They’ll just tap you on the head to quieten you down and then tie you up. The next thing you’ll know will be the tickle as some mad old sod starts carving you up for the entertainment of his followers.’ Morban shook his head. ‘No, I really do think that a nice quiet suicide might be the better way to go.’

  6

  With the feast’s inevitable and messy degeneration from celebration to orgiastic drinking frenzy, Gernot had given the command for guards to be set on all of the tribe’s most important places. The roads in and out of the city to the south, west and north, the grain stores and the tribe’s treasury, all were to be manned by men whose lack of fortune in the traditional drawing of lots had resulted in their being excluded from the feast other than a quiet mug of beer taken out of sight of the celebrating tribesmen. Not for them the long evening and early morning of drinking that would inevitably result in most of the tribe’s warriors lapsing into insensibility and sleeping where they fell, but instead the honour of ensuring that the Bructeri’s most sensitive spots were guarded by men possessed of sharp iron and the wits to use it.

  The young warrior standing guard on the treasury paced from one end of the short corridor that led from the palace quarters to the massively beamed and heavily nailed door that secured the repository of the tribe’s gold and silver, still glowing with the pride of having been given such responsibility by Gernot when there were men far better experienced and deserving of such an honour than he. On pointing out his unsuitability for the task in the face of his betters he had been heartened to hear his lord’s reply.

  ‘Consider this as a reward for your hard work on the training ground over the months. Other men may be better prepared, but none has worked as hard or improved as quickly. Another will stand guard tomorrow, but for tonight the honour is yours.’

  Pacing up and down the long corridor his heart swelled with the pleasure of it, the pride that his father, himself a warrior in the king’s household, would be enjoying now, perhaps raising one last beaker of beer to his son’s rise in their lord’s estimation before falling into the drunken stupor that was the aim of every man present at the feast. As he reached the treasury door and started to turn, he heard a footstep behind him, and spun, swinging his spear down from its place at its shoulder to bear on whoever it was that was approaching him from behind without warning. Seeing a face not only familiar to him but revered, he lowered the weapon’s point to touch the ground as the newcomer stepped close, bowing his head deeply.

  ‘My—’

  The knife struck once, swiftly and with all the power that the other man had at his disposal, its blade punching into his stomach and its point thrusting upwards to find his heart, stilling its rhythm with a cold, harsh kiss that sent his lifeblood spraying briefly across the corridor. Opening his mouth to speak, to ask why, he found the strength to do so absent, fled from his body with the blade’s implacable theft of his life, and slumped against the strong room’s door frame with his consciousness already absent and his life not far behind it. His killer bent over him for a moment, pulling the largely ceremonial but still completely functional key from around the dead man’s neck, opened the door and slipped inside.

  ‘This is the place.’ Gunda’s whisper was so quiet that Qadir had to lean close t
o him to make out the words. ‘Wait here. I will whistle before I rejoin, so that you don’t put an arrow in me.’

  The Hamian nodded, and before he had the chance to reply the scout was gone, away down the path that led into the town below them, a track so heavily used that it was wide enough for two men to walk abreast, and utterly devoid of any hint of grass.

  ‘We do not want to be here after daybreak.’

  The centurion nodded at Husam’s blunt statement.

  ‘I agree. You heard the tribune’s order, we are to leave before the sun is above the horizon.’

  ‘He is a wise man, and he cares about the men who serve under him. We are lucky to have come under his command.’

  Qadir smiled in the darkness.

  ‘Lucky? As you have said yourself on more than one occasion, being under his command could soon enough prove to be our death sentence. Do you never wonder how it is that we are forever being sent to perform just one more “impossible task”? His birth, his disregard for the niceties of his situation … his protection of our friend Centurion Aquila, all calculated to make him easily disposable, should such a sacrifice be required. And in that event …’

  ‘We would die with no little honour. That we know. But have you forgotten your vow to the Deasura, our goddess Atargatis, three times blessed be her name?’

  ‘The goddess …’ Qadir sighed, and Husam frowned at his centurion’s weary tone of voice. ‘In a world where the gods are so frequently used as a loin cloth to disguise the naked evil that lives in the hearts of men, I do find myself questioning the validity of all such idols when I hear a man being tortured to death in the name of a god. And I wonder why a god, were he – or she – to exist at all, would wish for that man to die in such a degraded manner.’

  The chosen man almost hissed his reply, whispering despite the lack of any audience beyond the third member of the party, a stolid man entirely trusted by both of them.

  ‘Do not say such a thing aloud! Do not even allow yourself to consider such a thought! Question the German gods all you like, but you doubt the existence of our Deasura at your peril!’