Altar of Blood: Empire IX

by Anthony Riches

  ‘As you wish, my King. My only concern was to ensure that he doesn’t delay us by being so weak from lack of food as to be unable to ride. But, as you say, he’ll—’

  ‘You’re right, as always.’ Amalric nodded his agreement with the older man’s words. ‘You, give the easterner a piece of that bread, and some dried meat, too. And make sure he eats it. If he falls from his horse tomorrow as the result of hunger and delays us, then it will go ill with you.’

  The Hamian looked up in feigned surprise as a hunk of bread was shoved into his bound hands, nodding his thanks into a hostile expression but remaining silent. The pursuit of his comrades had taken most of the morning to organise, with the fetching of food and organisation of the men left behind to collect and bury the bodies of the fallen warriors, and the afternoon had passed in a blur of forest paths, hills and open land, farmed for the most part unless too marshy to support a crop, across which the king’s men had ridden at a deliberate pace with the king’s huntsman at their head, two magnificent dogs ranging alongside him. From time to time he had stopped to examine the ground in front of them, clearly finding encouragement in whatever it was that he was seeing that they still followed the trail of the Romans who had abducted Gerhild. For Qadir himself the ride had been a waking nightmare, a continual struggle to avoid the loss of consciousness that beckoned him so seductively, the men around him using the butts of their spears to enliven him whenever he started to slump in the saddle. With the coming of night the thirty-man column of horsemen had halted and made camp, gathering firewood and making no attempt to disguise their presence despite knowing that the light of their encampment would serve to warn the fleeing Romans of their pursuit. The king had laughed at his uncle’s concern that their quarry might exploit the warning by escaping in some way.

  ‘Let them know that their doom is hard on their heels! How far ahead do you believe they are?’

  Gernot shook his head.

  ‘Not far, my King. Perhaps two hours. And tomorrow they have to cross the river of reeds. Even Gunda may struggle to find the right place to get across the stream, given how long it is since he was exiled, whereas your huntsman has roamed these parts most of his life. I think it most likely that we’ll find them on the southern bank of the river, still hunting for a ford.’

  Amalric grinned wolfishly.

  ‘Not one man of them is to die when we take them, not if he can be captured. Wodanaz is waiting eagerly for sacrifices to restore our tribe’s lost honour, soiled by their destruction of our sacred grove and the murder of my priest. And if we fail to take them tomorrow then perhaps I’ll give him this one, once the sun has set, wielding the knife myself in my role as the tribe’s first priest. I’ll open his chest with my sword and pull out his heart. That’ll be a nice surprise for him.’

  He stared at Qadir hungrily, and the Hamian cast his eyes down in the manner of a man who knew better than to present his captor with any challenge, locking his face into what he hoped was an immobile mask.

  ‘See, he has no idea? I wonder when he’ll start screaming?’

  Gernot laughed softly.

  ‘They say the Romans’ eastern soldiers have different gods to ours. Perhaps the moment that he’ll start screaming is when he realises that he’s about to meet whoever it is that he worships.’

  ‘Centurion.’

  Dubnus turned to seek the source of the quiet greeting, finding only an empty street in either direction, dimly lit by the guttering flames of a solitary torch. Half expecting that he would be set up for a beating on his disconsolate walk back from the governor’s residence to the transient barracks, he had already slipped a set of viciously studded metal knuckles out of his belt purse and settled them over his right hand, his fingers reflexively tightening on the thick bronze loops as he scanned the street for threats.

  ‘Centurion. Here.’

  A door was ajar in the building closest to him, the fortress’s headquarters, and a man dressed in the simple tunic of a slave was beckoning to him.

  ‘What the fuck do you want?’

  The beckoning figure put a finger to his lips and gestured again. Shaking his head in bemused irritation the Briton strode up the building’s steps, raising his beweaponed fist into clear view.

  ‘If this is some sort of game to lure me in there for a kicking, then you’re going to be the first man whose jaw I break.’

  The answer was couched in the same quiet tones, accompanied by another summoning gesture.

  ‘No harm will come to you, Centurion. Follow me.’

  Readying himself for violence, the Briton stepped in through the open door, raising an eyebrow at the sight of a pair of impassive legionaries standing guard over the entrance.

  ‘What the fuck is this?’

  The slave walked away into the building, gesturing wordlessly once more for the Briton to follow. Curiosity overcoming his reluctance, Dubnus followed him past another pair of men standing sentry duty over the chapel of the standards, the strong room where the legion’s eagle slept when it was not in the hands of its standard bearer. Turning a corner, his guide pointed to a heavy, nail-studded door.

  ‘Enter, Centurion. My master is waiting for you.’

  Opening the door the Briton stepped through, braced for violence, but instead found himself in a lamplit office, whose opulence was at once apparent from the massive polished oak desk behind which stood a single figure. His face was almost invisible, the lamps arranged behind him to cast shadow on his features, but his gesture for Dubnus to take a seat was clear enough, his voice both cultured and direct.

  ‘Sit, please, Centurion. And you might as well divest yourself of the bronze knuckles, you’ll struggle to hold a cup with that monstrous thing on your hand.’

  Taking a seat the Briton slipped the weapon back into his purse, staring in mystification at the other man as he poured two cups of wine, sipping from his own as he pushed the other across the table to the Briton.

  ‘It’s a fine vintage. I’m of the opinion that life’s too short to drink poor wine, and I make a point of offering my guests nothing less than would satisfy my tastes.’

  Looking down at the cup before him Dubnus shrugged, taking a mouthful of the wine and savouring the taste for a moment, raising the cup in salute.

  ‘It is good. In fact it’s the first good thing in an otherwise shit day. Thank you … Legatus?’

  The other man laughed softly.

  ‘No, Centurion, I’m no legion commander. A man has to be born to enormous wealth if he’s to command one of the emperor’s eagles, and my birth was as far from that exalted station in life as can be imagined. In truth, Dubnus, prince of the Brigantes, you had an infinitely better start to your life than I. I was born to a slave, although I had the good fortune to be delivered to my mother in Rome, and to be the illegitimate son of a powerful member of the court of the emperor Marcus Aurelius, the current emperor’s father. By combination of fortunate circumstance and my own intelligence I managed to prove my value to the throne, and was eventually freed from my servitude and put to work here, on the frontier. My name, should you be curious, is Tiro.’

  ‘So how do you come to be sitting behind the legatus’s desk, Tiro?’

  The other man shrugged.

  ‘He lends me its use, every now and then, when I wish to impress upon a man the real nature of imperial power in this province.’

  Dubnus’s eyes narrowed.

  ‘He lends you the use of his office? The legatus?’

  Tiro smiled, the expression barely visible.

  ‘Indeed, Centurion. Allow me to explain.’ He sipped at the wine again. ‘The legatus, as you’re very well aware, is a member of the senatorial class, a man who either has inherited or will inherit an enormous sum of money, and who has been smart enough, or lucky enough, or perhaps simply not quite rich enough, to avoid being branded as a traitor in order for that wealth to be confiscated by the imperial treasury. Being emperor is such an expensive business, what with thirty legions
to pay, and the cost of all those games and circuses, not to mention the bread that keeps Rome fed and content. But then you know this, given your friend Marcus Valerius Aquila’s recent experiences of imperial justice.’

  Dubnus frowned across the table.

  ‘How—’

  ‘How do I know these things? Because it is my job to know them, Centurion, because a man in my position needs to know every little fact that could make the difference between success and failure. Perhaps it would help if you understood my role here a little better? Let me explain it this way …’ He sipped the wine again, refilling his own and Dubnus’s cups before continuing. ‘There is, as a general rule, a lifespan for everything in this world. For everything and everyone and, for the purposes of this discussion, every family too. A great man arises, from nowhere, with a combination of ancestry that unlocks a genius, perhaps for warfare, perhaps for business, or perhaps simply for ruling other men. Sometimes, in the genuinely terrifying examples, for all three. His light burns brightly until he dies, revered by all, to be succeeded by his son who, everyone agrees, may not have quite his father’s brilliance, but who nevertheless performs his role well enough to bring honour to the great man’s legacy. But after him comes the third generation, with the founder of the dynasty’s genius so diluted by the introduction of other men’s blood to the mix that, unless by some quirk of fate or calculation new genius is introduced by marriage, he will be but a pale shadow of his grandfather. And so the dynasty crumbles into insignificance, or in the worst cases to ignominy and shame. Consider the fall of the first family, from the Emperor Augustus’s glorious forty-year reign to the disaster of his great-grandson Caligula’s short span of three years on the throne. Only a few decades later the Emperor Vespasian’s younger son managed to destroy his father’s inheritance in only a single generation. And so it goes. It is simply the way things are, Centurion.’

  Dubnus nodded.

  ‘I have seen this for myself. But why are you telling me this?’

  The other man leaned back in his chair, his face invisible in the office’s shadows.

  ‘The answer to that question is more straightforward than you might think, and concerns both the first and third generations of our hypothetical family. As I said a moment ago, the legions are commanded by Rome’s masters, the senatorial class who bow only to the emperor himself, and as a rule the provincial governors are for the most part chosen from among the ranks of successful legati, or those whose family have the most influence with the emperor. Which of course presents the emperor, or rather those men who make the decisions for him, with a limited choice of men from whom to choose, some of them brilliant, some rather less so. And, of course, even the smallest of frontier provinces will have legions, powerful tools in the wrong hands and even more so when, as has happened, two or three governors in adjoining provinces make the decision to join forces. So, what’s to be done if a province falls into the hands of another Julius Caesar, a man with the skills of a great general and the unmitigated bravery required to mount an assault on the throne? Or another Varus, with the abject lack of imagination and leadership required for another Teutoburg Forest? Whether in the hands of brilliant minds or fools, the use and the maintenance of such power needs to be assured by the presence of men with undoubted loyalty to the throne, if attempts to take the throne or military disasters are to be avoided. And so each major province has a man who can be trusted posted to a position of apparent mediocrity, men who can quietly steer around such potential disasters by means of a deft touch here, a swift bloodletting there. Men whose successes in avoiding either outcome can be ascribed to others, so that they can remain hidden in the shadows.’

  ‘Men like you?’

  ‘You have it, Centurion, I knew you were more than a scowl on a particularly muscular stick. Men like me. I watch over Clodius Albinus from the shadows, ensuring that everything he does is free from risk or, when I am unable to prevent him from acting in a manner more likely to further his own aims than those of the empire, I do whatever is needed to put right what would otherwise be wrong. Like sending a message to an enterprising young tribune to suggest that he might not want to risk boarding a naval vessel whose mission had been suborned by a man who considers him a mortal enemy.’

  Dubnus’s eyes narrowed.

  ‘Dolfus is your man.’

  The other man nodded.

  ‘Of course he is. All it ever takes is a short and meaningful discussion about potential future careers, and the display of my imperial warrant, for men like Dolfus to give me their unconditional loyalty. The decurion is a man of good family, and he knows full well that his first duty is to the empire and not to any individual, no matter how exalted.’

  ‘And it was your idea for my tribune to take the German woman to the north, rather than boarding the warships?’

  Tiro nodded.

  ‘It was. I expect him to successfully evade any Bructeri pursuit, unlikely though such a pursuit may be given the quiet exit I hear the tribune and his party made before the Germans caught up with you. I plan to journey north tomorrow myself, and to meet Scaurus and his men on the northern border of the Bructeri lands, and ensure that the Angrivarii grant them safe passages. Perhaps you’d care to accompany me?’

  The Briton drained his cup.

  ‘Of course I would. But my men and I are ordered to remain in barracks, pending a posting to some shithole or other.’

  The freedman smiled beneficently.

  ‘Then it’s a good thing that I have the ability to make you and your men vanish into thin air, isn’t it? As far as Clodius Albinus will know, he’s had you posted to dig latrines in a fort so distant that he’ll never think to check on the veracity of the records. Have your men ready to ride at dawn. And draw yourself a vine stick and a helmet crest from the fortress stores, the time for your status to be concealed is long past. Where we’re going, the more imposing you both look, the better.’

  Dubnus nodded, putting the cup down on the desk before him, then frowned as a thought struck him.

  ‘There is another problem.’

  The other man smiled at him knowingly.

  ‘Young Gaius Vibius Varus and the governor’s message? There’s no problem there …’ He raised his voice. ‘Is there, Vibius Varus?’

  The door behind him opened, and Varus stepped through it in a clean tunic and freshly polished boots.

  ‘No, Tiro, I don’t believe there is.’

  ‘But …’

  Both men smiled at the bemused Briton.

  ‘The message?’ Tiro shook his head. ‘Opened, read, filed for future reference and forgotten. The governor will entertain fond imaginings as to what’s going to happen when his rather idiosyncratic version of events reaches Rome, and only in the fullness of time will it dawn on him that the lack of response indicates that it might not have arrived after all. I’ve taken the precaution of substituting a rather more factually based summary of events to date and ordered its delivery to Rome with all speed, just in case he has second thoughts as to the reliability of young Varus here and decides to send another.’

  He stood, indicating the room’s door.

  ‘And now, gentlemen, there’s just one thing I need from you. Gold.’ The two men stared at him in bemusement, and he laughed, shaking his head. ‘Come now, you can hardly expect me not to have heard the governor’s frequent complaints about the amount of freshly minted coins that managed to get stuck to your tribune’s fingers in the process of it being used to enable the imperial chamberlain to make his bid for power? I know for a fact that Scaurus’s travel chest contains enough wealth to fund what I’ve got in mind with the Angrivarii, and their neighbours the Marsi to the east, whose lands we’ll have to travel through to reach the border with the Bructeri. So off you go and dig the chest out, and I’ll be along shortly with a smith to crack open the lock. I’m sure your superior won’t complain, given that without his money he might well end up exchanging death on a Bructeri altar for the same fate at the ha
nds of another tribe!’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  Husam shook his head.

  ‘No, Tribune, I am far from sure that these Germans have a prisoner, but I think it very likely. And I believe I know who it is.’

  Scaurus stared at him in tired disbelief.

  ‘But they were what, half a mile from your position when they stopped to camp for the night? How could you know?’

  The party had relocated another mile towards the river when it became clear that their pursuers had decided to camp on a small tributary of the Reed River, putting enough distance between them that the glow of their fires would be completely hidden by the trees. The Hamian inclined his head respectfully, but he wasn’t so deferential as to back down in the face of Scaurus’s scepticism.

  ‘Every other man in their party was wearing a helmet, Tribune. Only sufficient iron to cover the top of their heads, but every man wore this protection.’

  Dolfus nodded.

  ‘It’s the distinguishing mark of Amalric’s household guard. They all wear it.’

  ‘But one man was not wearing such a helmet. Nor was he carrying a weapon, unlike the men around him. And when he dismounted, two of them stayed close to him. I could not see if they were using their spears to keep him subdued though.’

  ‘So, perhaps the Bructeri have one of our men. Perhaps. The more important thing is that …’ Husam raised his hand with a deferential expression, and Scaurus, clearly still in pain, restrained himself from the volcanic loss of his temper that he was aware was building within him as a reaction to stress and exhaustion.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Forgive me, Tribune, I do have one more observation to share with you.’ Scaurus waved his hand, looking at the man with an expression verging on the predatory. ‘When the man I have assumed to be a prisoner dismounted, his head was at the same height as the horses. This appeared to be a tall man.’