Tiro shook his head in amazement.
‘And you think you’ll get away with flouting the authority of the imperial chamberlain? Cleander will have you hunted down, shipped back to Rome and torn apart by dogs in the arena. You, Varus, have condemned your entire family to liquidation, the men killed out of hand and the women made to suffer. Perhaps your sisters will be tied to posts in the Flavian Arena and left to the sexual depravities of intoxicated baboons, as I hear is the fate of many Christian women, now that a more relaxed regime has been restored to the people’s entertainments by our rather enthusiastic young emperor.’
Marcus walked forward, nodding to Varus before turning to the spy, his eyes slitted with anger.
‘You’ve chosen the wrong man to threaten with familicide. We only face that risk if there are any witnesses to—’
He turned to Dubnus, who had tapped his arm, then followed his pointing hand to see a small group of men walking up the slope from the marsh, a mud-stained scrap of white cloth held by the leader. The party stood and watched as they crossed the field, Marcus nodding slowly as he realised that the man holding the flag of truce was Qadir, and that he was followed closely by a man wielding a Hamian bow, an arrow nocked and drawn with its head pointed squarely at the prisoner’s back. Turning, he shot Munir a swift glance, and the watch officer hurried back to a point with a clear view of the field, putting a shaft to his bow and then waiting, ready to draw and shoot.
‘That’s close enough!’
Qadir stopped, and the motley group of half a dozen men behind him followed suit. The warrior with the bow stepped alongside the Hamian, holding the bow across his fur-clad body and raising the arrowhead to his prisoner’s neck.
‘Which one of you commands this usurpation of my tribe’s sovereignty?’
Marcus looked at Dolfus, who shrugged and gestured to the Bructeri.
‘Be my guest.’
The Roman walked forward, stopping ten paces from his brother officer.
‘Well met, Qadir. I’ll confess I didn’t expect to see you again alive.’
The Hamian smiled fleetingly.
‘Or in one piece?’
‘That too. But here you are …’
The bowman pushed on the arrow, drawing a trickle of blood from his captive’s flesh.
‘Here he is. Alive, for these few moments at least.’
Marcus shrugged.
‘One of his archers is watching you from just over there, with an arrow strung and ready to loose. You could run a hundred paces and still be within his reach. Kill this man and you cut your own throat.’
The Bructeri smiled without humour.
‘I am already a dead man. I am Amalric, king of the Bructeri, and when I return to Thusila without our tribe’s captured eagle, without my seer, with most of the warriors of my household spent in their futile pursuit and with my uncle dead, there will be no future for me. My short reign will be over, and I will be killed by the tribal nobles, as will my wife and son. There is no mercy possible when failure is as complete as mine. Which is an irony, Roman, since my intention ever since my coronation has been to establish a less contentious relationship with our neighbour across the Rhenus, and given that, the most likely successor will be a man who will appeal to the hatred of your people that still runs deep in my people’s blood.’
Marcus stared at him for a moment before speaking.
‘How can you claim to seek peace? I have seen the results of your priest’s sacrifices of Roman legionaries, taken from the western bank of the river and spirited back to your sacred grove to be maimed and physically ruined, kept alive for their sport.’
Amalric shrugged.
‘What is your saying? Rome was not built in a day? These things, and more, were a regular feature of my father’s reign, and his father’s before him, but they will not survive to be a part of my son’s. You have helped me in this by putting my chief priest to death in the most appalling manner possible, a way that showed he lacked the protection of the gods, and when I return I will find a replacement who is a little less thirsty for the blood of your people. But I will need your help if I am to succeed in this. Will you bargain for this man’s life with me?’
Dubnus walked forward with his axe hanging at his side, his voice grating as he stared at the king.
‘And what do you want in return for our brother?’
Amalric shrugged.
‘The eagle, for a start. We won that sacred prize in battle, and it is a symbol of the pride we still feel when we sing of that great victory. I cannot return without it. And my seer, of course, she must also be returned to her people. Nothing less will satisfy the Bructeri’s need to see their king return victorious over our oldest enemy.’
Marcus shook his head slowly.
‘All that? For the return of just one captive, however valuable he might be to us?’
The king eased the tension off the arrow still strung to his captured bow and pushed its iron head into the turf, then put the weapon over his shoulder.
‘I can also give you this.’
Putting out a hand he took a cloak-wrapped bundle from one of the young warriors behind him, holding it out to allow an object to fall out. Cotta started at the contorted features on the severed head that came to rest staring sightlessly up into the grey morning sky.
‘Gernot.’
Amalric nodded.
‘Ah, the trader. Yes, this is Gernot. My uncle, and with my father dead the strongest believer in our state of perpetual war with Rome, a belief they shared from boyhood. I always planned to kill him at some point, but the opportunity was too strong to ignore after our defeat in the swamp. I instructed the closest members of my household to hang back, and allow Gernot’s men to do the fighting and dying, which left him vulnerable to my sword when we retreated in defeat. This negotiation would have been impossible were he to have witnessed it, and I suspect he would have been the man to supplant me on the throne were I to have returned to Thusila empty-handed. He had to die.’
Marcus frowned.
‘What of the men behind you?’
‘Mine from their helmets to their boots. They are boyhood friends who grew to manhood with me, wenched with me, fought with me, laughed with me and drank with me. They will tell tales of my audacity in taking back that which was stolen from the tribe, and my people will love me all the more.’
Marcus shrugged and turned back to Dolfus.
‘What would you do?’
The decurion opened his mouth to speak, but Tiro beat him to it.
‘Spit on his bargain! The empire doesn’t want peace with these people, it wants a state of perpetual war between them, alliances shifting at Rome’s behest as it befriends first one tribe and then another. Keep the eagle, and the witch, go home and be heroes while this would-be peacemaker goes back to face his doom. I’m sure we can find some way to smooth over the awkwardness between us if—’
Dolfus cut him off with a wave of his hand.
‘You asked for my opinion, Centurion?’ Marcus nodded, and the decurion turned to Amalric. ‘Then your bargain is accepted. On one condition.’
Amalric stared at him for a moment.
‘Which is?’
The Roman pointed at Tiro, a look of disgust on his face.
‘You will take this … man … with you as a captive. I don’t care what you do with him as long as you ensure that he never escapes from his captivity. Use him as an advisor if you like, he’s clever enough, although I’d counsel you to treat his words with caution. Or make a footstool of his bones and dried skin if you like, it matters little to me.’
Tiro took a step forward, his voice raised in outrage.
‘You cannot do this! I am a valued agent of the imperium, a man—’
He crumpled to the grass like a puppet with its strings cut as Dubnus tapped him briskly behind the ear with the butt of his axe. Dolfus looked down at his sprawled body for a moment, then turned back to the king.
‘But if he ever does
escape I’ll make sure of one thing …’
He stepped closer to the German, close enough to reach out and touch the king, his words spoken vehemently but softly enough not to be heard by the men behind him.
‘I’ll make very sure that your tribe find out that you’re the man who stole the eagle from your own treasury and gave it to me, on his orders. I’m giving you your freedom from his intrigues, and those of the men who will inevitably follow him, if you’ll let me do so. When I return to Claudius’s Colony I will find your file, in his doubtless comprehensive records of who informs on who within the tribes, and who has been an agent of Rome, however unwillingly, however pragmatic their association with the empire, and I will destroy it. Take him away. And if I were you I’d bury him as deep as you can when you tire of his incessant smug prating and hand him to your priests to make reparation for the things he’s done to your tribe and others over the years. He signed his own death warrant when he instructed the Angrivarii to kill my men.’
Amalric nodded, gesturing to his men to pick up the spy, then to Qadir with an open hand.
‘You are free. But as the chief priest of my tribe I suggest that you reconsider your godless ways before they get you killed. There, I have fulfilled my part of the bargain, have I not?’
Marcus nodded, taking the iron-bound box from the trooper who was carrying it and holding it out it to the king.
‘This eagle was never formally lost, so its return could only have been an embarrassment to be covered up. Swear to me that it will never again be used to torture any Roman.’
Amalric nodded.
‘I swear to honour its capture in different ways.’ He held out his hand to Gerhild. ‘Come, sister. Your people await you.’
The seer frowned.
‘But I dreamed that I was to die here, on the field of bones and gold.’
‘Not everything you dream comes true. Or perhaps this is a prediction for another day? Until the day that Hertha claims your spirit you can make good use of the extra time you’ve been given by helping my people worship the earth goddess alongside their devotion to Wodanaz.’ The king looked at Gunda. ‘And you, brother, you have spent the last fifteen years roaming the frontier on both sides of the river. You will have seen and done things that we can only imagine. Will you return to my land, and share the wisdom you have gathered with me?’
The guide shook his head with a smile.
‘No, my King. An order of banishment cannot be removed from a man’s head once sentence is passed, and your priests would be duty bound to execute me for the sin of disobeying that order, would they not?’
Amalric smiled more broadly.
‘Leave that problem to me. I am, after all, the king. I write the rules of our religion. And besides, when it becomes clear to our people that you, an outcast, still loved your people enough to become Wodanaz’s chosen means of defeating our enemy by luring them out here, onto our ground, they will clamour for you to be forgiven. When they realise that the recapture of our eagle, whose theft was abetted by my uncle Gernot of all people, and the rescue of your sister from the clutches of Roman spies were both mostly your doing, I suspect that any resistance to your reinstatement as a member of the tribe will melt away. You have my word on it.’
Gunda nodded solemnly.
‘Then I can only accept, my King.’ He turned to Marcus and bowed. ‘Give my thanks to your tribune when he wakes, Centurion. Tell him that I renounce my claim on the three aureii he promised me. I have earned something of much greater value in return.’
‘You’re telling me that the witch was actually the king’s sister?’
Dolfus drank from his water skin before answering Scaurus’s question, looking into the fire that lit the clearing in which they had made camp for the night before re-entering Marsi territory. The tribune had regained consciousness that afternoon after almost a full day of sleep so deep that his comrades had for a time feared the worst, but his recovery since waking had been swift. While the wound still troubled him it was now devoid of any sign of infection, and his demeanour was more or less back to its usual acerbic view of the world.
‘Yes, Tribune. Tiro told me that Amalric’s father was wont to use his prerogatives as the king to bed any female that took his eye, and long before his marriage produced any children he fathered Gerhild and Gunda as twins by one of his wife’s serving women. It was all kept very quiet, of course, to avoid the risk of a bastard child contesting the throne, and neither of them had any idea of who their father was until much later, when Gerhild worked it out on her own. When the queen finally managed to turn out a male heir she insisted that Gunda be outcast when the opportunity arose, despite the extenuating circumstances, to finally remove any risk to her son’s succession. And while Amalric’s father agreed in order to keep the peace with his wife, he deemed the girl too valuable to the tribe to share her brother’s fate, and instead had her incarcerated in the tower close to Thusila so that he could consult her on both his own failing health and her prophecies for the future.’
He drank again, grimacing at the memory of his service to the spy master.
‘It was Tiro who put the idea of kidnapping her onto Cleander’s desk. From what he told me it seems that he feared Amalric would seek peace with Rome, and in turn destabilise the tribes around the Bructeri. The Marsi, Chamavi, Angrivarii, and several others would all have had their noses put out of joint, whereas a hostile Bructeri would ensure the status quo in the region, and all at no more cost than the occasional soldier abducted and tortured to death. And of course he had leverage over the king, who had made his inclination towards peace clear to one or two Romans to whom he would have been better off saying nothing, including, ironically enough, your centurion’s uncle.’
Scaurus shifted his position with delicate care for his wound, looking over at Varus with a questioning expression.
‘And you, Centurion, actually had the balls to intercept Tiro’s message to the Angrivarii and replace it with your own?’
The younger man shrugged.
‘I suppose it’s a question of that old adage, Tribune, it isn’t what you know, but who you know. I’ve sat and drunk wine with my uncle Julius often enough to have heard all of his stories about the various tribal kings he met while he was ensuring that they would all keep their swords sheathed when Rome’s attention was elsewhere. He might have been the quintessential man of action, but by the gods he could talk with a cup or two of good Falernian inside him. I felt as if I knew them all personally, so approaching the king of the Marsi wasn’t quite as off-putting as it might otherwise have been. And knowing his strong motivation towards a certain yellow metal, it wasn’t too hard to recruit King Sigimund to our way of thinking, once he had an even more significant purse than the one Tiro had given him in his hands.’
Scaurus lay back, looking up at the tree branches above his head.
‘I suppose we can be grateful that Tiro wasn’t sufficiently paranoid to make sure that neither you nor Dubnus were carrying any gold with which to effect such a change of heart.’
Dubnus laughed sourly from the other side of the fire.
‘Has nobody told you? The devious bastard told us that he would need every aureus he could lay hands on, and demanded access to your private effects in order to ransack what was left of the gold that stuck to our fingers during our exposure of the praetorian prefect.’
Scaurus nodded.
‘It was always my expectation that Cleander knew well enough we’d kept something back, even if Clodius Albinus wasn’t shouting to that effect from the rooftops. I’d imagine he told Tiro to use us as a source of funds, not least to make sure such a useful asset was removed from my control. That’s a pity, but unavoidable, I guess. So how did you manage to persuade the king of the Marsi to help you out?’
He looked expectantly at Varus, a familiar frown spreading across his face as the centurion’s expression twitched with barely suppressed humour.
‘With gold, Tribune.’
> ‘But if Tiro had our gold …?’
‘Tiro had some of our gold. It was obvious to me from the moment he pulled me off the street and made it clear who he really was that he was likely to be serving only one interest, and that we couldn’t trust him not to leave us face down in a ditch if the situation called for it. So I took the liberty of removing most of the gold from your chest.’
Altar of Blood: Empire IX Page 39