Fortress of Spears

by Anthony Riches

  ‘And whichever you choose, you must make that choice quickly now. If you’re not with us when we march tomorrow morning, you’ll represent a death sentence to the man I’ve sworn to protect with my own life. And I cannot allow that to happen.’

  Marcus closed his eyes and stood silently for a moment, swaying slightly on his feet with exhaustion, then opened his eyes and regarded them without any hint of emotion.

  ‘Very well. You are both good men, and I trust your judgement. I will seek to deal with my loss, and not betray those left alive for the sake of those already dead.’

  Martos put a gentle hand on his shoulder, guiding him towards the tent door.

  ‘Good. Life is for the living, Two Knives, and the more death you see, the more you will come to appreciate that truth. Let’s get you out of that mail and washed, and then the three of us can take Rufius’s head down to the fire that’s been set to deny the crows our dead, and reunite him with his brothers-in-arms. After that, I’d say that we’ll all need a drink, and a chance to remember the man at his best before we leave him here for good.’

  Stores Officer Octavius found his intended partner in the torc’s purchase absent when he made his way to the man’s section of the Petriana’s camp. Enquiries as to the whereabouts of Decurion Cyrus were met with the combination of indifference and near outright hostility to which he had become accustomed in his service as a stores officer. The most helpful comment he got was from a man whose sword he had replaced with moderately good grace less than an hour before, prompting a temporary truce in the usual state of open warfare between the cavalry wing’s fighting men and the storeman they were rightly convinced was making a small fortune from supplying their needs.

  ‘He’s out at the turf wall supervising the guards. One of the decurions stopped an arrow this afternoon, so Cyrus has gone over to make sure Double-Pay Silus is up to doing his job for now. I can take you over to see him if it’s urgent …?’

  His look of appraisal was enough to put Octavius on his guard in an instant. The stores officer and Decurion Cyrus were well known throughout the wing as men with a shared objective, wealth and all of the privileges it could buy them. Cyrus was reputed, despite his relatively lowly position as a squadron commander, to be wealthy well beyond the expectations of any of his peers, or indeed the wing’s senior officers. It was muttered that he had chanced across a large cache of barbarian gold in the previous few months, and had contrived to keep the majority of it for himself with a few well-placed bribes. As for keeping that portion that he had managed to retain to himself, his fearsome reputation for swift violence in the face of any perceived slight or wrong had guaranteed that nobody who had even the scantest idea as to what was kept in his campaign chest harboured any thought of theft. Octavius, detested though he was by the Petriana’s men, carried no such threat, and any man that suspected the presence of easy gain in his doings would have little to put him off the idea of taking a knife to either the store’s tent canvas wall or, should the necessity arise, its occupant.

  ‘Nothing that won’t wait. I’ll catch up with him later.’

  The storeman turned away with a quiet curse, but his mood quickly lightened with the realisation that the army was unlikely to be moving from their camp alongside the ruins of the barbarian stronghold for a day or two. There were sacrifices of thanks to be made to various gods, equipment to be recovered from the dead, wounded to be carried away for treatment and the corpses of the fallen to be gathered and burned. He was sure that the governor would be unlikely to throw battle-weary soldiers on to the road without a compelling need for such a course of action. He would have plenty of time to speak with his business partner once his night’s business was complete.

  *

  Posting Arminius to keep guard on the command tent delayed the arrival of the latest piece of bad news at soldier level in the Tungrian cohorts by no more than an hour, and by the time of the morning meal every man in the Tungrian section of the camp was fully aware of both the facts as they were known and the inevitable speculation wrapped around them.

  ‘Every fort on the wall burned out, I’ve heard, women and children raped and murdered and the greybeards pegged out for the crows.’

  Morban shook his head angrily at the trumpeter’s excited statement, reaching across their small tent and gripping the younger man by the tunic with an angry glint in his eyes. Short of stature and bandy legged, the standard-bearer was nevertheless solid with muscle, and a dangerous man when roused.

  ‘Then you’ll do well to keep your mouth shut and what you’ve heard to yourself. It’s just a story to you, eh? Well, to some of your mates it’s their women you’re talking about being fucked stupid by those dirty blue-nose bastards. Some of them have kids too. So get your bloody horn and get ready for morning parade.’

  He stamped out of the tent, his breath misting in the early morning chill, almost tripping over the child sitting outside, seemingly oblivious to the cold. The boy was intent on the knife he held in one hand, and was dragging the edge of its blade across a sharpening stone. He glanced up at his grandfather before returning his gaze to the weapon’s edge.

  ‘I thought I could hear you and that bloody stone, Lupus.’ Morban squatted down next to his grandson, holding out a hand for the knife. The boy surrendered it reluctantly, and stared fixedly at it while his grandfather examined the edge, snatching his thumb away with a curse as the blade drew a thin line of blood. ‘Cocidius, but that’s sharp! Six more months of your constant sharpening and you’ll have nothing left, lad.’ He handed the weapon back, watching as Lupus slid it into the sheath on his belt. ‘Look, Lupus, you don’t need to sharpen a knife every day. This isn’t normal …’ His voice faltered, foundering on the certainty that nothing he said was going to make any impact on the boy, who was staring at the ground in misery.

  ‘Antenoch told me to make sure I always had a sharp edge on my knife.’

  Morban nodded, blinking away the tears that were threatening to run down his cheeks. The boy, despite not having reached the age of thirteen years, had used the knife to hamstring a barbarian warrior at the battle of the Red River Ford, taking revenge for the murder of his friend Antenoch. He put a hand under the boy’s chin, lifting his face until they were looking into each other’s eyes.

  ‘I know. It’s not easy for me either. Antenoch was my friend, as well as looking after you when I couldn’t. I …’

  The boy started to cry, and Morban gathered him into his arms and hugged him tightly, feeling the child’s body shake as he sobbed out his misery, and his feeling of helplessness intensified. After a few minutes the sobbing eased, and the standard-bearer was able to gently remove the boy’s arms from around his neck and hold him out at arms’ length.

  ‘Come on now, lad, we’ve got a parade to get organised. I don’t even know if Centurion Corvus will be join —’

  As if on cue Marcus stepped out of his tent, pitched alongside that used by the standard-bearer and trumpeter, and looked about him. His eyes were red with fatigue, and his armour was still covered in dried blood, which was flaking away as the rings rubbed against each other with his movements, but his face had a determined set despite the exhaustion that shadowed his features. Morban took one quick glance and turned to bellow down the line of tents.

  ‘Qadir! Two Knives is up and about! And you, lad, go and get your cleaning gear, he’s going to need a bloody good brushing before he goes on parade!’

  Storeman Octavius caught up with Decurion Cyrus shortly after breakfast, strolling through a surprisingly busy morning to find his would-be partner supervising a flurry of activity. Having enjoyed a few hours of sleep, he was aghast to see that the squadron’s tents were being struck and loaded on to the wing’s baggage animals, while individual troopers were fussing over their mounts and checking equipment with the solemn faces of men going back into the fight.

  ‘What’s happening? How can we be on the move so soon, and with the battlefield still littered with gear?’ />
  Cyrus grinned down at him mirthlessly, shaking his head in dark amusement.

  ‘Always the last to know, eh, Octavius? The whole camp’s on the move, man, both legions going south to put a Brigantian rebellion back in its place, and we’re going north to see if we can bottle up the Venicones and prevent them from escaping back to their lands north of the abandoned wall. Most of us, that is. Some poor bastards have been detailed to ride to the north-east with the auxiliaries and take back some fortress that Calgus still holds.’

  The stores officer’s eyes widened in near-panic, and he gripped the decurion’s arm without being aware of the action.

  ‘But I’ve got a deal for us …’

  Cyrus reached out with his other hand and plucked the storeman’s grip from his sleeve, speaking in a quiet but fierce tone.

  ‘Not now. Can’t you see the interest you’re causing?’

  Two or three men were already watching the pair with thinly disguised curiosity, and the decurion turned away to check the fastenings on his saddle, speaking quietly over his shoulder.

  ‘What’s so urgent that it can’t wait a few days?’

  ‘I’ve got a soldier from one of the Tungrian cohorts offering me a bloody great big gold barbarian torc, and he says it belonged to a tribal chief. It’ll sell in Rome for a hundred thousand, minimum, and I’ve got him on the hook for a thousand. We can probably make at least twenty thousand on the deal, if you can just lend me five hundred to make up the purchase price …’

  Cyrus turned back to him, taking his spear and showing him its iron head as if to discuss some feature of its manufacture.

  ‘Firstly, my friend, there’s no way I’m going to put my hand into my purse with this collection of thieves and idlers watching. And secondly, both Tungrian cohorts are away off to the north-east with that aristo Felix and six squadrons, something about cleaning out a nest of blue-noses up north, so that torc’s about to march out of the camp. It seems that your deal’s walking out on you.’

  3

  Centurion Dubnus shifted uncomfortably on the examination table, feeling the doctor’s cool hands gently probing around the fresh scar that would be his permanent reminder of the battle at the Red River. The spear wound had been inflicted by a barbarian who had run full pelt into his century’s line and punched his weapon’s iron head through the big man’s armour, burying it deep in his side to put him out of the fight, and into the hands of the Noisy Valley fortress’s medical staff.

  ‘I can’t feel anything to indicate any infection, Centurion, and your wound seems to have healed nicely enough. You’re a lucky man. You can get back on your feet for a few hours a day, nothing strenuous, mind you, and no clever ideas about sneaking back to your cohort either. I know you’re desperate to get back into the fight, but you won’t be fit to get back into armour for at least a month. Do you understand what I’m saying this time?’

  Dubnus returned her questioning stare with a rueful smile. He had been caught at his room’s window a few days previously, watching the legionaries practising with their weapons when he was supposed to be confined to bed.

  ‘I understand, Doctor. I’ll sit in my chair and listen to the idiots comparing the size of their scars.’

  She nodded firmly.

  ‘Good. And no trying to make your way down the corridor unobserved either. You need at least another week of inactivity before we can be sure that your wound is really healed.’

  He nodded, sitting up with the help of the doctor’s orderly Julius, a quiet and good-natured man rarely without a smile on his face.

  ‘Is there any news from the legions?’

  Julius answered after a moment’s silence, shooting a troubled glance at his mistress.

  ‘Yes, Centurion, a message rider arrived last evening. I would have woken you when I heard the message he was carrying, but you looked so …’

  ‘And?’

  The orderly smiled at the questioning tone, but the doctor turned back to him and wagged a finger.

  ‘Calm yourself, Centurion. There’s nothing either of us can do, whatever the news might be. As it happens, the news is good, or so it seems. The rebellion is broken, their camp stormed and destroyed, and those barbarians who escaped are scattered, and running for their lives. And no, there’s no detail as to which units took what part in the fight.’

  Dubnus pulled his tunic back on gingerly, feeling the fresh scar tissue flexing with his movements.

  ‘Doctor …’

  She shook her head.

  ‘After all that’s happened in the last few months I think you should call me Felicia, Centurion.’

  ‘Very well, Felicia. Whatever fighting he might have seen, Marcus will have come through it in one piece. He’s faster with two swords than I am with one, his century are determined not to let “their young gentleman” come to any harm, and he’s got Tiberius Rufius to keep him from making an idiot of himself. He’ll be back here soon enough.’

  Her eyes moist, Felicia reached out for the big soldier’s hand.

  ‘I know. And if anything were to have happened to him, I could cope with it. It’s just the not knowing …’

  Dubnus gave her a wry smile.

  ‘I know. Believe me, cooped up in here, I know exactly what you mean. And now I must give you this.’

  He picked up a small cloth-wrapped package and handed it to her, catching Julius’s eye and tipping his head at the door. The orderly took the hint and made his excuses while the doctor unwrapped the cloth, revealing a small knife in a soft leather sheath.

  ‘What …?’

  ‘It’s for your protection. I asked the soldier that you discharged yesterday to bring it in for me. I want you to promise that you’ll wear it until Marcus can come for you. You need to be able to protect yourself if the need arises. You know where a man is vulnerable to a small blade just as well as I do, and that one’s long enough to open a throat if need be. It will strap around your leg above the knee, and be hidden under your stola. Promise me that you’ll wear it.’

  She drew the knife from its sheath, examining the razor-sharp six-inch blade with a critical eye well used to gauging the sharpness of her surgical tools.

  ‘Dubnus, I took an oath to protect human life, not to take it.’

  The big centurion shook his head, but his reply was gentle.

  ‘These are difficult times, and you’re too precious to my friend for me to see you without some way of defending yourself. What if the Brigantes break into this fort?’ He took a deep breath in through his nose, then exhaled and raised a questioning eyebrow. ‘And besides, it’s not just about you any more, is it?’

  The Tungrian cohorts marched two abreast down the well-beaten track that ran from the barbarian camp to the edge of the forest, and which would bring them out on to the flatter land of the Red River’s flood plain. The gently waving branches above their heads cast sun-dappled patterns across their ranks until they marched out on to the rolling plain, leaving behind the forest in which Calgus had planned to ambush and destroy the legions, before the presence of his Venicone allies had been detected by a chance encounter with one of Marcus’s soldiers. Emerging from the trees on to the plain’s gently undulating ground, the centuries drew up in parade formation and waited for the other components of Tribune Scaurus’s command to make their appearance. Marching at the head of his 9th Century, and still wrapped in the grief of Rufius’s sudden and violent death, Marcus was nevertheless aware of a collective melancholy sitting heavily on his men, a feeling he was himself quite powerless to resist. When the cohort’s column halted he stood his men at ease and strolled out in front of them, staring hollow eyed up and down the Tungrian cohort’s line and noting with a sudden pang the absence of Rufius’s 6th Century, and the stocky figure of his friend out in front of them. After a few minutes a column of legionaries began to emerge from the trees, their centurions drawing them up in front of the Tungrian line and standing them to attention until the cohort’s full strength was arrayed acros
s the plain. First Spear Frontinius spoke without taking his eyes off the legion detachment’s flag, the representation of the leaping boar that the 20th had made its badge over a century before.

  ‘We are honoured. The Twentieth’s legatus has given you their First Cohort to play with. He must have a soft spot for you, Tribune.’

  Scaurus nodded, watching as the cohort’s five centurions walked the lengths of their double-strength centuries, checking their men’s line and equipment with an attention to detail that would have done honour to preparation for a triumphal parade through Rome. He answered his deputy’s question in a matter-of-fact tone, not taking his eyes off the legion cohort’s fluttering detachment banner.

  ‘Indeed. I believe that Postumius Avitus Macrinus had a good relationship with my sponsor, before he left Rome to serve in Britannia. Ah, here comes their tribune. I’d suggest, First Spear, that you leave the talking to me. No matter what the man says. This man is the son of a most distinguished family, and I’m not sure that he’s going to find this very easy.’

  They stood in silence as the detachment’s tribune walked across the gap between the two cohorts, his first spear walking at his shoulder and one pace behind. He halted in front of Scaurus and nodded brusquely, while his senior centurion snapped to attention and stared blankly over Scaurus’s head. A man of about twenty-five, Tribune Laenas was of above-average height, with black hair and a broad face which, unsurprisingly under the circumstances, was set in a look of deep dissatisfaction.

  ‘Marcus Popillius Laenas, tribune, Twentieth Legion Valiant and Victorious, reporting for duty as ordered.’

  Scaurus stood in silence, holding the younger man’s gaze and waiting patiently. After a long moment’s wait Laenas raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Ah, is there something wrong, colleague?’

  ‘A small matter of military courtesy, Popillius Laenas. I fear that it is usual for the officers of a detachment to salute its commander.’