Altar of Blood: Empire IX

by Anthony Riches

  ‘Get his mail off, I need to see the wound.’

  Pulling the heavy iron mail shirt over Scaurus’s head, the two men watched as she peeled away the bandage that covered the tribune’s head. Where the perforation in his flesh had been an angry red it was now more of a dirty yellow, the skin around the wound swollen and discoloured.

  ‘The wound has gone bad, I thought as much. He must rest, and have it treated.’

  Marcus shook his head.

  ‘You heard what he said. If we stay here and the Bructeri find us, then we’re all dead.’

  She looked up at him with a quizzical expression.

  ‘Do you want this man to die, Centurion? I can replace the bandage to allow us to ride on, if you think he can stay in the saddle for very much longer, but if I do not treat him then his death will come swiftly. You choose.’

  The two men exchanged glances.

  ‘We cannot simply press on and have him die in the saddle.’

  Marcus nodded slowly at the German’s words.

  ‘How long will you need?’

  Gerhild looked around her.

  ‘Long enough to build a fire, heat water, gather some fresh lavender if it is to be found, grind it into a little of the horse feed and then mix what you Romans call a pultes. I must draw the infection from the wound before we can consider moving him.’

  The Roman nodded decisively.

  ‘Arminius, get the men working to do what she needs as quickly as possible. I’ll take the Hamians and watch the ground to the south. At least that way we’ll have some warning if the Bructeri have found their way across the river and are at our heels.’

  ‘I have found a way through the reeds, my King.’

  Bowing his head, the hunter waited for a rebuke, or worse, at the number of attempts that had been required to find a crossing point that would allow a horse to wade the river unimpeded, but Amalric’s anger at their seemingly interminable delay had long since exhausted itself.

  ‘Good. Lead us across.’

  The older man turned back to the river with his dogs capering beside him, eager to resume the hunt, and the young king watched as the first of the men of his household nudged their horses into the water, following the huntsman’s lead into the field of reeds that choked the river’s bed.

  ‘They will be long gone by now, I expect.’

  Gernot was silent for a moment.

  ‘I wouldn’t be so sure about that, my King. Consider where they can run to, in reality. To the west are the Chamavi, our enemies it has to be said, but no great friends to Rome either. To the east are the Marsi, neutral to Rome but allied with ourselves and so unlikely to knowingly allow a party of fugitives to enter their land. But between them are the Angrivarii, forever our enemies, and if I were this man Dolfus, and whoever it is that stands behind him, I would be looking to them to provide me with shelter from our anger.’

  ‘And that means …?’

  ‘If I were running for our border with the Angrivarii, my first stop would be their ruined fortress at Aliso, to use the road of wood, or what little remains of it.’

  Amalric stroked his chin.

  ‘It would be something of a gamble to assume that this will be their route. If they realise how obvious it seems, then surely they might pick another road to throw off our pursuit?’

  Gernot shrugged.

  ‘They may not have any choice in the matter. If this Dolfus has been told to make for the frontier with the Angrivarii, he has no option but to ride in that direction. If we ride swiftly we may yet take these Romans unawares.’

  ‘These Marsi clearly don’t trust their neighbours.’

  Tiro nodded his agreement, leaning back in the saddle that had been provided as part of the price of the horse he was riding to ease the pain in his buttocks. Leaving the remainder of the detachment behind them to safeguard the warship, Tiro and the two centurions had ridden north for most of the day. Now the Marsi capital was before them, heavy earth walls protecting the city from any potential aggression from the tribes that bordered their land.

  ‘There isn’t a single tribe on the eastern bank of the Rhenus that trusts any of the others. Fortified cities like this are commonplace for the protection of their major settlements, and a symbol of status as well. It is a continuing mark of the ignominy to which the Bructeri were subjected after their war with the Angrivarii and the Chamavi that they still are not allowed to build similar defences.’

  The village’s head man had sent one of the younger men riding ahead of them to warn the tribe’s chief of the Romans’ approach, and a party of warriors resplendent in red tunics and wearing swords were waiting for them, drawn up in a line across the road that led to the city’s main gate. Tiro turned in his saddle to face the two centurions.

  ‘We should now dismount, to show the king the appropriate respect. And take your swords off, both of you.’ They climbed down from the horses, and Dubnus pulled a pained face as he lifted his scabbard’s leather strap over his head, moving his hips in discomfort much to Tiro’s amusement. ‘Piles, Centurion? Perhaps when we meet the Bructeri woman she can make you an ointment for them, I hear she’s quite the healer.’ He saw the king approaching, and raised a finger to them. ‘You two concentrate on keeping your expressions respectful, and I’ll do the talking here. The men with the swords are mainly there for show, and to let the king tell his people that he doesn’t roll over to have his belly tickled when the big boy from across the river turns up, but a few words out of place might just give them cause to air their iron. And if it looks like getting aggressive, whatever you do, don’t react. If this lot decide to kill us then let’s face it, we’re dead whatever happens.’

  He dismounted and strode forward, stopping at a respectful distance from a man clad identically to the warriors on either side, but whose size and bearing immediately marked him out as their leader. Bowing deeply, the Roman spread his arms to indicate that he was unarmed.

  ‘Greetings, King Sigimund. I come before you without sword or shield, empty-handed in the pursuit of a peaceful resolution to a dispute between Rome and the Bructeri tribe!’

  The king looked back at him for a moment before speaking, and when he did respond his tone was sardonic, reflective of an apparent amusement at Tiro’s unexpected appearance at the gates of his capital.

  ‘So, Tiro, once again you arrive unbidden, and doubtless seeking a “small favour” from the Marsi. And whatever this request entails, I feel certain that were King Amalric here he would even now be railing against you. Word travels swiftly when you Romans decide to interfere in the affairs of any of the tribes, because what you will do to one of us today will become your accepted way of keeping us all in our place tomorrow.’

  Tiro shrugged, apparently unabashed.

  ‘What can I say, your Highness? Kidnapping the woman Gerhild would not have been my favoured approach to the problem.’

  Sigimund laughed.

  ‘I’m sure it wouldn’t! Your way would have involved a few well-placed bribes and a small but deadly dose of poison, I expect! So, now that you know that I’m already very well aware of your theft of Amalric’s seer, what is it that you want from me?’

  ‘Only a small thing, your Highness. I ask permission for my comrades and I to cross your land as far as the point where the Angrivarii hold sway.’

  Sigimund raised an eyebrow.

  ‘And that’s the full extent of your request? I’m surprised, given that my headman’s messenger told me that you have a bag of gold with which to purchase my favours.’

  Tiro conceded the point with a gracious half-bow.

  ‘As ever, King Sigimund, you have seen through my attempts at diplomacy. I do have a small gift to offer you, a token of Roman friendship with the Marsi, although there is a good deal more than this to be had …’

  He passed across the purse, watching hawklike as Sigimund weighed it in his hand. His disappointment on forcing Scaurus’s chest open had been evident, finding only sufficient gold to pay
off the local head man at their landing point and fill the purse he had just handed to the Marsi king.

  ‘I wish to enter the kingdom of the Angrivarii in order to welcome a few of my men who have chosen to ride north from the Bructeri land, rather than—’

  ‘No!’ Sigimund shook his head in amazement. ‘You mean to tell me that your kidnappers are bringing the Bructeri woman out to the north, across their own land? Even I am amazed at the lengths you people will go to in order to put an enemy back in his place. Amalric will be humiliated in the eyes of his people and those of the tribes that surround them, when the news of such audacity becomes public. Having lost her to the unexpected intervention of your ships would have been one thing, but this? This is something much, much worse. Such a loss of face could see the man killed by his own nobles just for the shame of it.’

  He walked out of the line of his warriors, gesturing for them to stay in their places, stepping to within a foot of the Roman and bending to speak more quietly in his ear.

  ‘And if you need me to grant you leave to ride across my land in one direction, surely you’ll need the same favour to come back the other way with your men?’ He paused for a moment. ‘And with Amalric’s witch, I presume?’

  Tiro stared back at him unflinchingly.

  ‘You have the nub of it, Your Highness. In return for which I am empowered to offer you a further payment of one hundred gold aureii.’

  The king looked away for a moment, considering the offer, then raised his voice indignantly, poking a finger into the Roman’s chest to emphasise his point.

  ‘You ask me to betray the friendship of a fellow king! For a purse of gold? You should have a higher regard for the Marsi, an honourable people!’

  He leaned closer, lowering his voice to a whisper that was loud enough to be obviously venomous while too quiet for the words to carry, continuing to stab his finger at Tiro’s chest as if to reinforce some dire threat.

  ‘Two hundred. And fifty. To be paid before the woman leaves Marsi territory. The woman not to be visible to my people, and to travel by boat for as much of the distance as possible. I must be able to tell Amalric that her feet never touched Marsi soil, understood?’

  Tiro nodded almost imperceptibly and, stepping back, Sigimund struck a decisive pose.

  ‘I will, for the sake of good relations with our powerful neighbour in the west, accept your offer of gold for the Marsi treasury, but that is as far as I can go in the name of our mutual friendship. You will be allowed to cross our land until you reach that of the Angrivarii, and after that your welcome here will be at its end. Do you understand me?’

  Tiro bowed deeply again.

  ‘Completely, King Sigimund. My humble apology for having made such a gross assumption that your goodwill could be bought, and my thanks for allowing myself and my companions to cross your land. I would be grateful for the chance to feed and water our horses, and perhaps take a bite to eat and sleep for a few hours, if that were possible?’

  Sigimund nodded regally, waving a hand at one of his men to make the arrangements, and Tiro turned back to the watching centurions with an inscrutable expression, speaking quietly as he took the reins of his horse from Dubnus.

  ‘And that, gentlemen, is how business is done with the Germans. They’ll stab a brother in the back for enough coin, but they always want to be able to tend his wounds afterwards, and offer their heartfelt condolences. So not a twitch of the lips from either of you, eh? Just remember that we’ve just been soundly embarrassed, and we’re not happy. Bear that in mind while we’re inside those walls, unless you want some bad-tempered Marsi warrior asking what the fuck you’re smiling at?’

  ‘He’s still sleeping?’

  Gerhild looked up at Marcus from her vigil over the tribune’s comatose body, swathed in several layers of blankets despite which his body was trembling as if chilled by a cold wind.

  ‘He is fighting the infection from the wound. Until he either wins this battle or loses it we cannot move him.’

  Dolfus walked up, his gait and expression bespeaking a man whose patience was close to exhaustion.

  ‘We have to leave now! The Bructeri can’t be far behind us, and I’m under strict orders not to allow her to fall back into their hands.’ He paused for a moment, one hand clenching at his side. ‘I don’t want to take a sword to you, lady, but if I have to …’

  Gerhild smiled up at him.

  ‘Do not worry, Decurion, it will not be your hand that takes my life, on the field of bones and gold.’

  The Roman stared at her for a moment in exasperation.

  ‘Leave him here, if he can’t ride. I’ll take you north to the Angrivarii, and the centurion here can protect Scaurus.’

  She shook her head again with a gentle smile.

  ‘I cannot leave him. The point will come, sometime in the night, when he needs protection that none of you men can give him.’

  Marcus and Dolfus exchanged looks before the former spoke.

  ‘We could make you leave him. I won’t harm a woman, but you could not resist us if we chose to take you north by force.’

  She stood, her eyes hard with determination.

  ‘You won’t.’

  She looked down at Scaurus, cocking her head as if she were listening to something faint and far away. After a moment she looked up again, her expression deadly serious.

  ‘I have been blessed with three gifts from the goddess, as foretold by my tribe’s holy woman at the time of my birth. The least of these, sometimes unreliable, is on occasion to manipulate the minds of men, as you saw at the river of reeds when the king’s huntsman failed to see the path across the river.’

  Dolfus shook his head in disbelief.

  ‘You expect us to believe that you prevented him from seeing the—’

  She cut him off with a curt gesture, a subtle flicker of fingers that seemed to leave him abruptly speechless.

  ‘I am also gifted, or possibly cursed, with an ability to see what is to come, days or years from the present, in my dreams. It is by this means that I know only too well that neither of you will raise a hand to me. The other, the gift I treasure over everything else, is my ability to heal both body and mind, sometimes with nature’s remedies, sometimes with the touch of my hands, and sometimes with the help of the goddess herself, acting through me. With your tribune’s wound I am going to have to use all three, so we must all both stay here until the moment comes for me to act.’

  She stared up at him with flint-hard eyes.

  ‘Understand me clearly when I tell you that the man shivering and twitching beneath these blankets will play a role in events that are yet to occur that will shape the destiny of your empire. He cannot be allowed to die here.’

  Dolfus frowned.

  ‘Events that are yet to come? What does that mean?’

  Marcus shook his head at the decurion.

  ‘Were you not listening? The lady believes that she sees the future in her dreams. And you’ve seen the tribune in those dreams, have you, madam?’

  The seer nodded solemnly.

  ‘Yes, Centurion, I have. When five men claim the ultimate prize, he will be the man who holds the balance between the final two contenders.’ She waved her hand again, and Marcus felt giddy for a moment, Dolfus taking an involuntary step back at the same moment. ‘But I’ve said more than enough on the subject. You will both forget my words, but you will remember, and believe, that his time to die has not yet come.’

  ‘We must camp for the night, my King. Without the light of the moon I can no longer follow the trail.’

  Amalric shook his head in frustration at the supplicating hunter who was cringing in the expectation of a blow for his temerity.

  ‘Your dogs still have the scent?’

  ‘Yes, my King, but …’

  ‘Then we can still follow their trail! By the light of torches if need be!’

  Gernot leaned out of his saddle to whisper in the king’s ear.

  ‘Perhaps we would
be better halting for the night, my King? The light of torches would be visible for miles, and might enable the Romans to set up an ambush. Their archers could take a heavy toll of our numbers were we to be so illuminated, and perhaps even threaten your own life.’

  The younger man looked at him for a moment, then came to a decision.

  ‘Very well, make camp.’

  He climbed down from his horse and strode away into the half-darkness to relieve himself, the men of his household busying themselves hobbling the horses and gathering firewood while there was still a vestige of light in which to do so. Walking back into their midst he stood and watched their hurried preparation for the night, aware that most of them were avoiding his eye for fear of his evident ire.

  ‘We’ll catch them, never fear. They have wounded, we know that much, and the last time your man had their trail we were still finding blood spots every hundred paces or so.’

  Amalric nodded at the truth in his uncle’s words. His huntsman’s dogs had been wild with excitement at their detection of the first of the blood drops, and the marks had provided them with a reliable guide as to the fugitives’ direction of travel which, as Gernot had predicted, was clearly heading for Aliso.

  ‘How far are we from the Roman fortress?’

  Gernot called the huntsman across and repeated the question.

  ‘An hour’s steady ride, my King, less if you were to put your heels to the horses.’

  ‘So close …’

  Dismissing the tracker with a smile of thanks the nobleman leaned back, watching as his men worked to build up the fire that they had coaxed out of twigs and leaves. When he spoke again his voice was almost smug with certainty.

  ‘So close that their escape is almost impossible, my King. Consider this: they have at least one wounded man, and have chosen not to abandon him. Any man losing blood during a day in the saddle will have needed treatment, and while we both know that Gerhild will insist on healing him, even her abilities cannot repair that sort of damage in one night. With such a burden they will be easy enough to find in the morning.’