The Leopard sword e-4

by Anthony Riches

  ‘Sometimes it is necessary to make a small sacrifice to demonstrate a point. He will be well cared for. And you see my point? In the hands of an average swordsman this weapon is formidable, whereas in mine it is given speed and purpose that make it invincible. This demonstration was for your benefit, Centurion Aquila, to ensure that you don’t get any ideas about attempting to find this place and seeking to use your undoubted skills upon me once you are healed. We may be equally blessed with the ability to throw iron around, but even the beautiful workmanship of your blade would be no match for this.’ He held the darkly dappled sword up to the light, turning his masked face to stare up at it. ‘And now it is time for you to perform the purpose for which I have spared you, Valerius Aquila. Go and tell your tribune that on this occasion he would be well advised to leave us alone. Your welcome here is now at an end, and the next time I see you I will be looking down the blade of my Leopard Sword at a standing corpse. Grumo.’

  He nodded to the big man standing alongside Marcus, and as the Roman turned to see what he meant the bandit’s huge fist smashed into his jaw, dropping him to the ground with his face on fire with pain. A pair of boots stepped into his field of view as he knelt in the snow, and without looking up he knew that Obduro had moved to stand over him.

  ‘Forgive me, Valerius Aquila, for this last indignity. I can hardly release a man whose skill at arms is the match of my own without taking some small step to remove him from the forces ranged against me, can I?’

  Blindfolded once more, and little better than semi-conscious, Marcus was led out of the bandit encampment and down the hill, then out into the forest. The big man walked him in silence, speaking only to communicate changes of direction, and after what seemed an age of half walking and half staggering, he muttered a single word of command.

  ‘Stop.’

  The faint tang of wood smoke was in the air, carried on the breeze, and in the forest’s deep silence the Roman wondered whether he could hear, at the very edge of his battered senses, men’s voices barking orders. While he stood still, unsure as to whether Obduro’s command that he was to be kept alive was to be obeyed, he sensed the bandit moving around him. The big man gripped his injured jaw with one hand, its hold so fierce that it was all Marcus could do to stop himself groaning with the pain, and tore the blindfold away with the other. Keeping a tight hold of his prisoner’s face Grumo leaned close to him, his sour breath warm on the Roman’s skin in the morning’s chill. Swaying, and struggling to focus on the looming shadow, part blinded by the sudden sunlight and blinking fruitlessly against the effects of the blow he’d received, the Roman stared back at him, completely defenceless.

  ‘Look at you.’ The big man hawked and spat at his prisoner’s feet. ‘The mighty Roman conqueror? I could do you with my eating knife. If I didn’t know the chief would find out I’d butcher you here, and leave you for the pigs. You killed three of my men yesterday, and the next time I see you I won’t be waiting for anyone’s permission to finish the job.’ He released his hold on Marcus’s jaw, putting the flat of his hand on the Roman’s forehead and sending him staggering away to land on his back in the melting snow. ‘Away with you! Come back any time…’ He turned away, calling a final comment over his shoulder. ‘I’ll be waiting!’

  The three cohorts had crossed the river in an orderly fashion, the first men across spreading out in centuries to provide security for those following, although in truth the soldiers were more interested in soaking up the morning’s sunshine than in any unlikely threat, now that they were back on friendly ground. The remaining force on the river’s southern bank had been reduced in strength in an orderly manner under Frontinius’s close control, the withdrawal of each century from the line defending the bridge’s southern end being matched by a contraction of the bridgehead, until at length there were only two centuries left.

  ‘Take your men across first, Dubnus. Julius and I will follow once your last man’s on the bridge.’

  Dubnus saluted the first spear, turning away and barking orders at his chosen man and watch officer.

  ‘Move your arses, Eighth Century! By tent party, get across that bridge and reform! Smartly, mind you, you’ve got an audience!’

  He stalked away towards the river, upbraiding his men for the state of their dress with a vehemence that brought a grim smile to Julius’s face.

  ‘It sounds like our colleague is about as happy as I feel this morning, sunshine or no bloody sunshine.’

  Frontinius grunted his agreement, sweeping the trees around the clearing’s scene of devastation with one last, long stare, then he turned to watch as the 8th Century started to cross the river.

  ‘We might have been lucky only to have lost two men, you know. It looks to me as if they knew we were coming.’

  Julius nodded morosely.

  ‘But to have lost Marcus of all men. Someone will have to tell his w-’

  A man in the front rank of his 5th Century interrupted with a hoarse shout, pointing out into the trees.

  ‘Man coming in! Looks like one of ours!’

  Both officers spun to follow his pointing arm, and Julius’s jaw dropped at the sight of a bedraggled centurion struggling out of the trees. He ran for the clearing’s edge, waving his men forward.

  ‘ On me! ’

  The century sprinted forward in his wake, splitting to either side of the exhausted Marcus as he collapsed into Julius’s arms. Frontinius limped up behind them, bellowing for them to form a line and staring into the trees for any sign of pursuit.

  ‘Get some shields around him!’

  With the 5th Century covering them, Frontinius and Julius lifted their semi-conscious comrade between them and walked him towards the bridge, exchanging unhappy glances as he tottered on his dragging feet despite their support. Julius eyed the river’s width uncertainly, giving Marcus’s bruised face and slitted eyes an appraising stare.

  ‘He’ll not make the crossing unaided, and if he falls in we’ll lose him.’

  Frontinius shook his head.

  ‘He won’t need to. Look.’

  Lugos had cast his war hammer aside and was striding across the bridge, a determined look on his face. He strode up to the two officers and looked down at Marcus, who lifted a weary hand in greeting. Without saying a word the Selgovae warrior bent to examine the Roman’s face, his hands surprisingly gentle as he touched the bruised jaw. Shaking his head he waved the two centurions aside, then squatted onto his haunches in front of Marcus, put his shoulder into the exhausted man’s stomach and straightened his legs, hoisting the Roman and his equipment into the air like a tired infant at bedtime. He turned back towards the bridge without a word, and Frontinius watched him step onto the submerged bridge with exaggerated care, speaking to Julius without taking his eyes off the giant warrior and his burden.

  ‘We’d best get him on a cart and away to Tungrorum. If that bruising on his face is what it looks like then he’s going to need all his wife’s skill to put that jaw straight again.’

  Felicia took one look at her husband as Dubnus and Julius carried him through the surgery door, and pointed to the operating table that dominated the room.

  ‘Lift him up there, please, gentlemen.’ She examined the swelling bruise that was distending the right side of his face with slow, careful hands. Marcus leaned forward and muttered something in her ear, and she looked round at his colleagues with an expression only a little the right side of distress, shaking her head. ‘He’s clearly concussed, although I don’t suppose you need me to tell you that. His jaw’s badly hurt, from the feel of it. Perhaps not completely broken, but certainly fractured. He won’t be able to eat solid food or speak for at least a fortnight, probably longer. Undress him, please.’

  The two centurions pulled Marcus’s armour over his head while he sat and shivered with the pain, his eyes dull and unfocused. Dubnus grinned at him, looking critically at the swelling that had doubled the size of his jaw on one side.

  ‘We’d better stay for a
while, eh? Your woman will need a pair of big strong boys to hold you down if she decides to amputate. And if you die, don’t forget I’m first in line for that pretty sword.’

  ‘The first person in line for that pretty sword will be me, Centurion, given the amount he spent on it.’ Dubnus bowed to the doctor as she re-entered the surgery with an armful of jars.

  ‘Of course, ma’am, it’s simply-’

  ‘Soldiers’ humour. I know. But since my husband is all but unconscious with the pain I’d say the person you’re amusing most is yourself. And it’s hardly you that’s in need of reassurance, is it?’ She put the jars down and bowed her head over them for a moment before turning and taking the abashed centurion’s hand, her eyes wet with tears. ‘Forgive me, Dubnus, no one’s made any greater sacrifice for Marcus and me, and I thank you for it. I’m just…’

  The big man raised his hand to silence her apology.

  ‘I know. Work your magic on him and ignore my prattling. How can we help?’

  She turned back to the jars, rapidly dispensing two small quantities of powder into a cup of wine before stirring honey into the mixture, then passing the concoction to Dubnus.

  ‘Get him to drink this. It may be bitter even with the honey, but I can’t work on the injury until he’s drunk it all. Here — ’ she passed him a thin tube made of glass — ‘he can use this to avoid having to open his mouth for the cup.’

  Marcus winced at the mixture’s taste, but saw the look on his wife’s face and lowered his head obediently to sip at it again. Julius leaned over and smelled the cup, wrinkling his nose at the odour.

  ‘What’s in the drink?’

  Felicia replied over her shoulder while she laid out her equipment.

  ‘It’s a mixture of the dried sap of the poppy and something I’ve been reading about recently: the dried and powdered root of the mandrake plant. The imperial physician Galen recommends its use for the sedation of a patient to whom the treatment must inevitably cause pain. Make sure he drinks it all.’

  Waiting until Marcus’s eyes closed, and he failed to respond to a hard pinch of the soft skin on the back of his hand, she took a gentle hold of his jaw and palpated the bruised area with her fingers. When he failed to react she took a firmer grasp, and delicately put pressure on the bone, pressing it with the flat of her hand. Letting out a sigh of relief she nodded to the centurions.

  ‘As I thought, the bone isn’t shattered. Whatever hit him either only caught him a glancing blow, or, more likely, wasn’t made of iron. A fist, perhaps? I expect that there’s a crack in the bone though, so I shall give him the only three treatments that are available to me. Pass me that thread, please, Dubnus.’ She took the reel of thread from the puzzled centurion. ‘Now hold his mouth open for me, as gently as you can.’ Looping the slender cord around one of her husband’s front teeth, and tying a tight knot to secure it, she wound the thread around the tooth behind it, carefully pulling it tight, then repeated the act with the tooth behind that. ‘Now, this is the important one. I suspect that the crack in the jawbone is between this tooth and the next, so I need to pull it closed by using the teeth as anchor posts for the thread. Open his mouth as wide as you can, please.’ She reached deeper into Marcus’s mouth, slipping a noose around the tooth in question then tugging it tight, with a small smile of triumph. ‘Got it.’

  Winding the thread tooth by tooth back to the original anchoring point, she tied it off and stood back from her unconscious husband, reaching behind her for another jar. Pulling out the container’s stopper she dipped a finger into the off-white paste inside and rubbed it gently along the line of Marcus’s swollen jaw.

  ‘This is knitbone, a flowering herb that has been boiled in water and then ground into a paste and incorporated into this salve. Rubbing this ointment on his face twice a day will help the bone to knit more quickly. And now…’ She selected a long bandage and looped it around Marcus’s head, tying it loosely across his jaw. ‘Tight enough to provide some support to the bone, not tight enough to force the crack open again. And that, gentlemen, is the limit of my abilities. All we can do now is leave him to sleep off the treatment, and offer whatever prayers we feel might help the gods to smile favourably on his recovery. I believe there’s an arrow wound for me to deal with, now we’ve done all we can for this officer, and after that there’s a case of frostbite?’

  ‘There’s little enough to tell, Tribune. We rode west until the snow started, fortunately close enough to a farm to take shelter in their barn, and waited it out overnight. Anyone stuck out on the road will have had a miserable time of it. Once the snow lifted we rode straight back here to find out what had become of your raid into the forest.’

  Seeing Julius and Dubnus standing in the doorway of the administration building, Caninus stopped his account of the last day’s events, and Scaurus, turning to find his centurions waiting for permission to enter, waved them in impatiently.

  ‘Gentlemen, you have news of our colleague?’

  Both men marched in and came to attention, and Julius saluted before speaking.

  ‘The centurion has a fractured jaw, Tribune, and will require at least two weeks before returning to duty. Possibly longer.’

  The tribune nodded.

  ‘We can be grateful for small mercies, then. Mithras was watching over him, no doubt about that. I’ve seen broken jaws before, teeth smashed and the man in question left with a deformed face for the rest of his life, invalided out of the service in extreme cases. So who’s to lead his century, First Spear?’

  Frontinius cocked an eyebrow at Julius. His senior centurion spoke without hesitation.

  ‘His chosen man is a good man. Very good, as it happens. He’s been a bit morose of late though, which is a bit of a concern. I’m just wondering if he’s the right man to pick up Centurion Corvus’s lads, given their devotion to their officer. He’s been a temporary centurion before, of course, when the Hamians were shipped into Arab Town, but never led a century in combat.’

  Frontinius nodded decisively.

  ‘It’s make or break, then. If Tribune Scaurus is in agreement you can inform Chosen Man Qadir that he’s appointed to lead the Ninth Century until Centurion Corvus is fit for duty. And you can impress upon him the fact that I’ll be watching him very closely. After all, we still need to rebuild the Sixth, once we can find another eighty men to reconstitute it, He might well be the right man to build a new century, if he can hold his men together for the next few days. Tribune?’

  Scaurus nodded his agreement.

  ‘As ever, First Spear, I’ll defer to your judgement when it comes to managing your people.’ The two centurions saluted and turned to leave. ‘Centurion Julius, I’d like you to stay and take part in our discussion as to what happened in the Arduenna. I don’t believe we can determine our next steps until we work out just what it was that went so badly wrong. Whether it was betrayal or divine intervention, I’ll not put my men back into that forest until I know I can take the fight to this Obduro character without fear of finding an arrow protruding from between my shoulder blades.’

  Marcus awoke to find himself lying in a hospital bed, still bone-weary from whatever it was that had been done to him while he was under the influence of Felicia’s potion. Content to lie in silence with his eyes closed as his mind surfaced from its long, deep dive into darkness, he gradually became aware of his surroundings: the scratchy feel of a blanket laid across his naked body and the hard frame of the bed beneath its thin mattress. A man groaned close by, and Marcus forced his eyes open, blinking painfully at the light of a lamp placed by his bed. Whoever it was alongside him was muttering quietly to himself, his stream of invective and profanity apparently inexhaustible.

  ‘Fifteen years! Fucking bandits! Fifteen bloody years keeping the bluenoses in their place and never anything more than a scratch, then some robbing, whoremongering, goat-fucking deserter puts an arrow through my bloody knee.’ The soldier was attempting to struggle to his feet with his back to the rec
umbent centurion, his left leg swathed in heavy bandages from thigh to calf and splinted to remove any mobility from the knee joint. He subsided onto the bed, his back still towards the now more or less wakened Marcus, and he was looking down at the wounded leg with evident disgust, to judge from his tone of voice. ‘If I could just get this fucking stick off, then I could bend the bastard enough to walk on it.’

  You’ll be sorry if you try that, Marcus mused, knowing the doctor and her temper as well as I do. He tried to speak, but the combination of bandage and pain prevented him from making any sound other than a grunt.

  The soldier turned as best he could, whipping up a hand in salute.

  ‘Sorry, Centurion, I didn’t realise you was awake! I suggested you might be better off in your own room, but Centurion Dubnus reckoned you’d be happier with some company. Here, I’ll get the orderly. Orderly! ’ He bellowed the summons at the top of his voice, and quick footsteps hurried down the corridor. Felicia appeared at the door, taking in the scene in an instant.