After the lunchtime meal the volunteer squadron turned east, away from the road’s course towards the east coast and down a long shallow valley that ran north-west for miles, down to a river plain lost in the misty haze. Double-Pay Silus looked down the valley’s long slope and smiled happily, turning back to Marcus and pointing to the palm of his right hand.
‘Well, Centurion, this is my ground now. I’ve ridden these hills a dozen times or more over the years, and I know it as well as I know this skin. The road runs almost to the coast, where the Tuidius meets the sea, but we’re going to ease down this nice little valley and leave the stone path to the mules …’ He glanced quickly up at Marcus, but found his officer’s face set in a wry smile. ‘… if you take my meaning. They’ll follow the road until it finishes close to the river late this afternoon, given that they’re forced-marching, and camp out of sight of the ford tonight. Tomorrow morning they’ll turn west to find the ford and they’ll probably be crossing by mid-morning, ready to climb the hills on the far side of the valley. All of which will allow plenty of time for anyone set to watch for their approach to get a warning back to the Dinpaladyr, after which any idea of taking them by surprise goes out of the window.’ He raised an eyebrow to Marcus, his face alive with the prospect of a hunt. ‘And there’s our opportunity. Anyone who’s been set to watch for any sign of Romans is going to watch the road, since that’s the way they know our infantry to make their approach. We, on the other hand, can sneak quietly down this nice little valley as far as the edge of the river’s plain, cross it unseen when it’s misty, early tomorrow morning, and then turn east and flush out any watchers in the hills on the far side before they even know we’re there. And if we can deal with the watchers before they ever get sight of the infantry, then they can make their approach to the fortress of the spears with the advantage of surprise. And your improbable plan for getting inside without starting a massacre might just get a chance to work, eh, Centurion?’
By late afternoon the exhausted soldiers of Dubnus’s temporary command were marching on little more than willpower, and the fear that whatever momentary relief might be gained from falling out of the line of march would be far outweighed by the punishment that their tormentor would bring down on them in the event that any man flagged. The auxiliary centurion had marched alongside them without any sign of discomfort since the half-century had marched through the Noisy Valley gates, despite the rumour that he had discharged himself from the fortress’s hospital with a spear wound not yet completely healed.
‘It’s a right bastard, this road, don’t you men think?’ Dubnus’s voice rang out along the small column as steady as if he were standing at ease, not marching along beside them at the standard pace. ‘I’ve never liked it. The bloody thing goes up and down like a whore’s skirts, so that one moment your calves are burning with the climb, and then the front of your legs feel like they’re being caned with the pain of stopping them from running away with you in the dips. Whichever idiot engineer laid this one out straight needed his head examined.’
He looked up and down the detachment’s length with a grim smile.
‘On the other hand, it does provide you ladies with something a bit more testing than lazing around your barrack waiting for the tribune to decide what to do with a half-century of cowards.’ A man in the file closest to him allowed a hint of a scowl to show on his face, and the auxiliary centurion bore down on him, putting his mouth six inches from the soldier’s ear before speaking loudly enough for the entire detachment to hear him. ‘Ah, so at least one of you doesn’t like being called a coward. A pity that he’s stuck with the rest of you, then, isn’t it?’
The unit was breasting yet another crest, revealing the shape of a burned-out fort at the summit of the next hill. Dubnus turned and walked backwards, pointing his left arm at the shattered ruin coming into view.
‘That, soldiers, is our home for the night. Fort Habitus, named after a legion centurion who served here soon after the Wall was first built.’ He turned back to the line of march and strode alongside the detachment’s front rank. ‘Habitus was a proud old bastard by all accounts, old enough that he should have retired, but the locals weren’t all that happy when the Wall went up and divided them from each other, and they expressed that unhappiness by killing Romans whenever and wherever they could, given the chance. Anyway, old Habitus was ordered to take his century out on patrol one day not very far from here, or so the story goes. He probably thought that patrolling in such limited strength was a good way to get attacked, but he was too much of a soldier to question orders and so off they went.’
He spat on to the road’s surface.
‘Poor bastards. They were ten miles or so from camp when the local blue-noses jumped them. Sounds familiar, eh? The barbarians were three hundred strong, or thereabouts, more than three of them for every man in the century. Old Habitus had seen it all by that stage of his career, of course, and he knew that if he allowed his men to run they’d all be dead inside a count of five hundred, and so he shouted at them to form a square, to stop the tribesmen from getting round their flanks, and to stand and fight.’
He glanced across their ranks, finding every man’s face turned to his and their expressions taut with interest.
‘And fight they did. Retreating when they could, with blue-noses surrounding them on all sides and the day wearing on into afternoon, and still they fought. A wounded man was a dead man, that far from help, and more than one dying soldier tried to take one or two of the savages with him by stepping out to fight man to man, but for the most part they held their ranks and slowly hacked their way back along the route they’d come earlier in the day. They left a trail of corpses behind them, their own and those of the tribesmen attacking them, but they held their nerve even when half of them had been killed and the remaining men were almost dead on their feet. The trumpeter kept calling for help, when he wasn’t spearing blue-noses, and eventually, with evening drawing on, they heard the sound of an answering trumpet. There were Roman soldiers close by, and an end to their torment. The barbarians, well, they knew that their chance to take a centurion’s head was slipping from their grasp, so they mounted one last wild attack, swarming around the detachment’s shields in a desperate charge, but old Habitus shouted for his men to hold on for just a little longer, and his soldiers stood firm in a circle of men that shrank with every casualty until another three centuries came over the hill and chased off the barbarians. There were thirty of them left standing, and not many of them without a wound of some kind, but they marched back into their camp with their heads up and their spears black with dried blood.’
He paused for a moment before continuing. The detachment was almost at the top of the hill, and the fort’s burned and shattered timbers were looming on the skyline.
‘Centurion Habitus was killed before his century was relieved. He stopped a spear in the back of his neck that dropped him like a sack of shit, poor old bastard. The men that survived said that they’d all have died in the first hour if it hadn’t been for him bellowing at them to keep fighting, and that all the way through the fight he had a little smile on his face, as if he knew what was coming before the end. They named the fort after him to act as an example to the rest of the army …’ He raked a hard stare across their faces. ‘… and to you, if you have the guts to follow it. Right, then, off the road here and into the fort. Get yourselves fed and then settle down for the night, one man from each tent party to stand guard with a two-hourly relief. And if I find any of you sleeping on guard there’ll be no need to draw lots for who’ll be beating you to death, because I’ll already have done the job with my bare hands.’
Later in the evening, before darkness fell, he called the watch officer to him with a request that raised the other man’s eyebrows.
‘Help me get out of this armour, will you, Titus? I can’t bend enough to slide out of it.’
The watch officer shrugged and called another soldier over, the pair of them lifting the
heavy mail armour from their new centurion’s shoulders while he squatted to allow them to pull it clear. With the armour removed Dubnus pulled off the padded arming jacket and tunic that he wore beneath it, revealing his muscular upper body to the watching soldiers. A long strip of linen was wound around his stomach several times to form a thick bandage, and tied in place by its trailing ends, and as they watched he stripped it away, winding it up into a neat roll of cloth. As the linen fell away from his stomach it revealed a vivid red scar an inch wide, and Titus grimaced at the sight, his bruised face twisting in sympathy.
‘Spear?’
Dubnus nodded curtly, wondering whether he was taking too big a risk in letting the soldiers see his weakness.
‘Yes, two weeks ago at the battle of the Waterfall. The tattooed bastard put the bloody thing clean through my mail and skewered me from front to back. It’s healing well enough, but it still hurts like the blade’s still in there when I try to bend.’
He watched as the realisation that their new officer was not as invulnerable as he seemed sank into the soldiers’ faces and laughed at them, putting his hands on his hips with a smile.
‘Any two of you fancy having a try at me now?’
One by one they looked away, until only the watch officer held his gaze.
‘You’re not recovered from a spear wound and you’ve still got the apples to come north looking for a fight? Why?’
Dubnus smiled wryly, stretching wearily.
‘I’ll tell you once we’re on the road tomorrow morning. If, that is, I’m still alive tomorrow morning.’
8
The volunteer squadron camped in the cover of the shallow valley that night, within a few minutes’ ride of the River Tuidius. Silus had calculated that any watchers would most likely be hiding farther to the east, keeping watch on the ford that the cohort would use to cross the Tuidius rather than the apparently unfordable stretch of river to its west, but he was nevertheless loath to abandon the valley’s cover. They spent an uneventful night, and awoke at dawn to find, just as Silus had predicted, that the river’s plain was wreathed in a thick mist that restricted visibility to no better than a hundred paces. The newly promoted decurion gathered his men about him, his words made dull by the mist’s muffling curtains of vapour.
‘I was counting on a nice thick layer of river fog. It always happens at this time of year once the nights get cold, and it means that we can get across the river with no risk of anyone seeing us. So there’s no time for breakfast now, we need to get swimming before it lifts. Get your kit packed but don’t wear anything heavier than your tunics and your cloaks to keep you warm while we ride down to the river. Your armour and weapons will need to be strapped to your saddles, so make sure you roll your mail up nice and tight.’
The squadron followed his lead down to the river’s edge, each man watching the horse in front of him intently as the mist gathered in thick curtains that curtailed visibility to a few feet in some places as they made their way across the river’s flat plain. Silus gathered them around him again at the water’s edge and pointed to his own equipment, already packed on to his horse’s back.
‘The Batavians are supposed to have swum across rivers like this and even wider alongside their horses in full armour, back in the days when the divine Julius conquered the south of this island, but I’m buggered if I can see how they managed it. There are those that think they might have used their shields for buoyancy, but there’s no bloody way I’d risk slipping off my board and sinking like a stone in mid-river. We’re doing it my way today, so go and have a look at my horse and see how I’ve got my armour laid across the saddle, and with my sword on top. Look at the way I’ve secured them with my rope, and used it to tie my spear and shield to the beast’s side. Then take a length of rope and do the same yourselves, and I’ll come round and see how good a job you’ve done. And make sure your spear isn’t going to stab your horse in the eye if the poor sod turns his head to find out what the fuck you think you’re doing, eh?’
He strolled around the horses, providing help to those men to whom the act of tying their equipment to their mount was proving difficult, eventually expressing his satisfaction with their preparations. Pulling off his tunic, he folded it neatly and slipped it under the rope holding his armour in place, then did the same with his blanket and boots. Standing naked in the cold morning air, he smiled wryly at the men around him.
‘Well then, let’s have you stripped down to your skins and ready to swim. And don’t bother making the usual tired excuses about how cold it is.’
The soldiers stripped with the usual bathhouse ribaldry, albeit muted both by their circumstances and the admonishments of their decurion.
‘Right, here we go. Stand by your animal’s head and take a good firm grip of the reins. Walk the beast in and start swimming, and they will follow you. They might not enjoy it all that much, but every horse here knows how to swim. Just keep your arms and legs well clear of theirs, because there’s only one of you that will win if you get tangled and it isn’t going to be any of you girls. When you get to the far side keep your fucking voices down, and we’ll have no squealing or shouting out how cold it is when you get in, you’ll soon warm up with the effort of the swim. On the far bank get your sword drawn before you worry about getting dry and keep a tight grip on your horse once you’ve got your feet back on dry land, because some of them are going to be more than a bit pissed off at being made to do this. Now follow me …’
He strode forward into the river, walking into the chilly water without hesitation, and sliding his body into the horizontal position almost noiselessly, breaststroking out into the stream with his horse swimming alongside him happily enough. Marcus waded in behind him, and was surprised to find the animal’s flanks shivering as he put his hoofs into the water. The big grey tugged against his reins without any real force, but strongly enough to indicate his discomfort. Pulling at the reins with a gentle insistence, Marcus led the animal into the deeper water, breathing in sharply as the cold water reached his groin, then pushed himself forward into the water and started swimming for the far bank, still lost in the mist. The horse surrendered to its rider’s unspoken command and started swimming, surging up out of the water and then easing back into it alternately in a porpoising motion, his eyes rolling and his teeth bared at the unfamiliar sensation. Finding that the horse was starting to outpace him, Marcus waited for one of the animal’s plunges back into the water and slipped a leg over his back, thanking providence that he had tied his spear and shield to the other flank. If the extra weight troubled the horse there was no sign, and freed of the need to keep pace with his rider, he forged through the water faster than before, passing Silus’s mount in less than a minute. The river’s northern bank loomed out of the fog more quickly than Marcus had expected, and getting a glimpse of dry land was enough to spur the animal to one last great effort. Horse and rider staggered ashore untidily, and Marcus slipped from his mount’s back with his gladius drawn and ready to fight, despite the shivers racking his body with reexposure to the cold air. Silus staggered ashore behind him, his sword already drawn and his body blue. His voice stuttered with the cold air’s grip on his body, his lungs panting for breath.
‘S-s-see? N-n-nothing t-to it …’
Another horseman wearily climbed the bank behind him, and the decurion pointed to the left.
‘Ten paces that way, then dry off with your blanket and get your kit on. I want you ready to fight.’
Qadir waded out of the water next, the chestnut mare calm under his touch, and Silus raised a disgusted eyebrow.
‘There’s no justice. Not only the best horseman I’ve met in this whole bloody country, but his bloody manhood’s still dragging in the water.’
The Hamian shook his head and hooked a thumb over his shoulder.
‘If you want to be truly scared, take a look at that. Why do you think I was swimming so quickly?’
Both the officers looked past him, to see the impre
ssive shape of Arminius as he waded out of the river. Silus shook his head slowly.
‘Gods below …’
The German smiled complacently as he walked past them, and Silus pointed out into the fog still wreathing the riverbank.
‘Get your sword out, bugger off into the mist and get that thing covered up.’
The squadron came ashore in ones and twos, until every man was accounted for and dry enough to put on their armour. The mist persisted, although it seemed to Marcus that it was thinning slightly as the sun climbed away from the eastern horizon, a slightly brighter spot in the grey. Silus cast a critical eye at the ascending spot of light, nodding decisively.
‘This lot will have burned off in an hour or so, so mount up and follow me. I want to be safe on the far side of the hill before it clears, and out of sight of anyone looking out for us.
They rode carefully across the grassy expanse, at one point scattering a flock of sheep that was grazing in their path. Marcus looked around for any sign of their herder, tightening a hand on the hilt of his sword even as he wondered whether he could kill an innocent to maintain the secrecy of their task, but the running sheep were swallowed by the mist without any sign of their keeper.
‘He’s probably still asleep.’
He looked around to find Qadir at his shoulder, the chestnut trotting easily with the last of the river’s moisture steaming off her body.
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