The Leopard sword e-4

by Anthony Riches

  Marcus raised a questioning eyebrow.

  ‘If, as you suspect, Caninus left his brother dead in that stable ten years ago, rather than this apparently fictional girl Lucia, how in Hades did he send me a severed head that was so obviously his?’

  The centurion sipped at his wine.

  ‘That’s easy, Tribune, if you can accept the proposition that the Caninus twins weren’t the only boys their mother raised. It seems there was another brother a few years younger than Quintus and Sextus, and their mother logically enough named him Septimus. When I found the headless corpse of an unidentified male in Caninus’s fortress earlier today, I also found the words “Septimus will have revenge on the fratricide Sextus” scratched into the wall of the cell where he’d been held, and the body’s hands had that same broad-fingered look to them. And Caninus was quick enough to admit it, when he thought he could kill me and walk away with the gold. He wasn’t Quintus, the older of the twins who let his wits talk him out of trouble; he was Sextus, the younger brother whose violent and ruthless nature couldn’t tolerate his twin having something he wanted for himself. Caninus must have told their younger brother, Septimus, that he’d killed his twin, either to cow him or perhaps simply because he could. When I found the headless body it was clear that Sextus, or Quintus as we believed him to be, was making his move, and intended to use his remaining brother’s head to make you believe he was dead. Julius told me how badly battered it was, the eyes and teeth literally torn out?’

  Scaurus nodded, unable to suppress a shiver at the memory of the brutally disfigured head Tornach had held out to them in his apparently trembling hands.

  ‘Yes. Mutilations intended to conceal the differences between the two men, I presume. We can only hope he was dead before they set to work with the pincers.’

  Marcus shook his head sadly.

  ‘Not from the amount of blood in the sand around the corpse.’

  ‘Indeed. The man never allowed another’s pain to get in the way of making his deceptions absolutely believable. We can only be grateful that he drew the line at allowing his men to commit a genuine rape of your wife, although their use of a stolen knife to sour the relationship between you and Tribune Belletor was a masterstroke.’

  The centurion shook his head again ruefully.

  ‘Not that it needed much more souring. And no wonder Albanus was so terrified of being questioned; it was Obduro, not Petrus, who was his business partner. Petrus was no more than a gang leader with an eye to the main chance, and with the right connections to dispose of the stolen grain and to ensure that Albanus knew what would happen if he stepped out of line. And it was probably me that set Caninus off on his path to attack the city when I sent away for the copy of the census. He must have known that something in it would have betrayed him. Perhaps he feared that the existence of a younger brother would set us to thinking, or perhaps it was simply that this girl Lucia, the supposed daughter of a wealthy merchant, never actually existed.’

  He sighed.

  ‘Whatever it was that led to Caninus’s last big throw of the dice, it seems that everything I’ve done in the last few days has turned to ashes. I even missed the clue at the execution, when that man started shouting that the real danger was among the city’s officers. He must have been one of “Obduro’s” men to have recognised the man’s voice, and the prefect’s man, Tornach, was certainly ruthless enough to kill him in order to maintain his identity as the bandit hunter. I’ll be glad to see the back of this place, if it restores my judgement.’ He tipped his head to the damascened steel sword, which Marcus had laid across a chair. ‘Is that thing as formidable as it was rumoured to be?’

  Marcus nodded, his face sober.

  ‘Terrifyingly so. That shield I had lined with iron strips to stop the blade barely did the job. The idea worked though, and because it was round I could twist it and tear the sword from his hands while it was stuck in the rim.’

  Scaurus walked across to the sword, picking it up and feeling the weapon’s balance.

  ‘What will you do with it?’

  His centurion pondered for a moment.

  ‘Part of me wants to keep it. I’ll never see another sword like it — that’s a certainty — but another part of me knows that the damned thing’s been turned to evil once already, and that it might well serve the same purpose again. It might be better to turn it into something a little less all-powerful. I’ll take it to the smith and see what he makes of it. Some knife blades, perhaps…’

  Julius was sitting quietly with Annia in the hospital when the tribune’s runner found him. The number of men who were wounded during the defence of the grain store had been remarkably low, since those close enough to be hit by flying debris had either been killed outright or died from their injuries soon thereafter, and Felicia had been able to put the emotionally traumatised woman in a private room, with a soldier on the door at all times to ensure her privacy. She had permitted Julius a visit, and whilst she had warned him to steer well clear of any reference to the events of the previous day, he’d quickly realised that Annia was not to be dissuaded from the subject.

  ‘Of course the doctor thinks I’m still too delicate to talk about it. She doesn’t realise that what I need is a drink with a friend I can trust, and a chance to talk it through and put it behind me. I haven’t killed a man before…’ She paused for a moment, then looked at him appraisingly. ‘I can trust you, Julius? To be there when I need you?’

  The big man struggled to meet her eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know any other way to say it. I should have made you come away with me when I had the chance.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that. The rape wasn’t your fault, it was Petrus’s, and seeing that he’s to be nailed to a cross I can hardly complain that he’s not paid for it. And I’ve had worse things happen to me in the last fifteen years. I’m asking if you can organise some part of your life around a woman like me. I can’t stay here, not now that I understand the reality of my trade. No matter how thoroughly your tribune cleans up the city there will always be gangs, and gangs will always see women like me as property, nothing more. And I won’t ever be a man’s property again. Can you live with me on those terms? They’re all I have to offer.’

  He nodded, taking her hand.

  ‘I made the mistake once. I won’t make it again. And I have my own life as a centurion, so I can’t exactly complain if you choose to live the way that fits you best. What will you do?’

  She smiled at him knowingly.

  ‘I thought I might ask the doctor if she needs a volunteer orderly. She tells me that she lost her last assistant last year, and since then she’s had nothing better than a succession of dull-minded soldiers working for her. And who knows, perhaps I can…’

  She fell silent as the soldier put his head round the door.

  ‘Begging your pardon, Centurion, but the tribune requests your presence in the basilica.’

  Annia smiled at him, shooing him away.

  ‘See, there’s that life of yours. I’m going to have a bit of a sleep, and then I’m going to talk to the doctor and make her an offer of my services. Come by later on with a flask of wine, and hopefully we can drink to my new life.’

  Julius marched into the tribune’s office in the basilica with his vine stick under his arm and stamped to attention, guessing that the tribune had summoned him for the difficult conversation he’d been expecting ever since the cohorts’ return. Scaurus glanced up at him from the desk, gesturing with a wry look at the scrolls and tablets vying for his attention.

  ‘Stand easy, Centurion. You’ve got a powerful habit of getting my attention, Julius. If you’re not destroying whole granaries by incinerating their contents, then you’re deserting your command and running about the city rescuing female civilians who are apparently possessed of absolutely no military value whatsoever. You are a highly trained and capable officer of inestimable military value to both me and this cohort, and you put yourself at risk. You put your
century at risk by leaving them under the command of your chosen man at a time when enemy attack was imminent. And, to be frank, your actions in defence of the grain store may well have destroyed what’s left of my career, unless we can turn some of this stolen gold to making amends.’

  Julius stared straight ahead, ready for whatever punishment the tribune chose to deliver to him, but the tribune had already turned away without waiting for an answer, pointing to a sword lying across the chair next to his desk. Julius recognised it as Frontinius’s weapon, traditionally passed from each first spear to his successor.

  ‘As if all this weren’t enough, I’ve still got the major problem of not having a clear successor for Sextus Frontinius. It clearly can’t be you, given your recent escapades, so if you’ve got any ideas as to who among your colleagues would make a worthy successor, then please feel free to share them with me.’

  Julius thought for a moment.

  ‘Corvus, Dubnus and Caelius are all too young. Clodius and Otho are both too brutal and Milo’s not brutal enough. Titus could do it, after a fashion, but he’d not thank you for the opportunity.’ He sighed, shaking his head. ‘It’s at times like these I miss Rufius the most. That, and whenever Dubnus starts getting uppity…’

  The tribune walked back across the room and stood in front of him with a fierce expression.

  ‘Do you take me for a fool, Centurion?’

  Scaurus waited in silence, and Julius realised that this was one of those rare questions that — although it invited the man being asked to venture a negative opinion of the man doing the asking — he was actually expected to answer.

  ‘No, Tribune, far from it.’

  His superior kept staring at him, to the point where even the imperturbable centurion was starting to feel discomfort at the tight smile on the tribune’s face.

  ‘Really? It was the only conclusion I was able to come to when I considered our relative records over the last twenty-four hours. While I was away chasing down a non-existent threat I left you and your century to guard the procurator’s gold. Instead of which you managed not only to safeguard the money, but also to free an innocent civilian, a victim of my stupidity in leaving the gold so lightly guarded that Petrus and his cronies believed it was theirs for the taking if they just applied a little leverage with your woman. I scarcely have to add that the honey in this particular cake is your single-handed destruction of Obduro’s band with your inspired idea to set fire to the grain dust. I heard the storeman’s warning of how a spark from a hobnail could set a whole granary alight just as clearly as you, but I’m not sure that I would have been clever enough to use that potential for destruction as a weapon.’

  He sat back with an equable expression, prompting Julius to frown at his words.

  ‘But the damage to the grain store? And your ca-’

  ‘Career? To buggery with my career, First Spear. I’m never going to be a legatus, not unless something truly unprecedented happens to uproot the current political realities. I’m not from a good enough family, you see. Besides which, by the time we’ve rebuilt the store and restocked it, we’ll still have enough gold to make a very favourable impression on the local governor. Have you seen the casualty figures? No? I’ll read them to you. We took thirteen dead and another seven wounded, mostly as the result of stopping flying bricks, whereas the bandits had almost ninety men killed, the same number wounded and of the rest of them barely a tenth got away. Most of the men we captured were still wandering about with their senses blasted out of them. They were too close to the granaries when the dust ignited, you see, and the flying debris seems to have gone through them like a reaping hook.’ He stood up, advancing round his desk with his hand extended. ‘Well done, Centurion, and not just for pulling my testicles out of the fire. The day when we forget our duty to the innocents who’re caught between us and the enemy will be a sad day. Your friend’s profession is of no relevance whatsoever. She was just such an innocent caught between two enemies, and you did the right thing. You plan to look after her, I imagine?’

  He turned away without waiting for an answer, pointing to the first spear’s sword.

  ‘You’re the natural successor to the ownership of that honourable blade, and in just a minute I’m going to invite you to strap it on and take charge of the First Cohort. You can help me to choose a man to lead the Second as one of your first tasks. Being in charge of two cohorts is too much for any man in my opinion. But before I invite you to change your life forever, let’s just be clear on something that’s very important to me.’ He looked the centurion hard in the eye. ‘If you ever feel that I or any other officer in this cohort is making a mistake of the size that nearly ended in disaster yesterday, you are to tell me so, and to keep telling me until I start listening to your concerns. Is that clear?’

  Julius nodded, looking at his superior with a new-found respect.

  ‘Yes, sir. Crystal clear. Of course I’ll have to discuss this with my brother officers. It’s our tradition, sir.’

  Scaurus smiled again, slapping the big man on the shoulder and then reaching over for the first spear’s sword, putting the weapon into Julius’s reverentially extended hands.

  ‘I know that your tradition says that the cohort’s first spear must be chosen by a gathering of the officers, and whilst I could override that convention I don’t really see the need to do so, since I fully expect your brother officers to be as clear-headed on the matter as I am. And until that decision is made I am ordering you to assume the duties of the role on a temporary basis. Carry on, First Spear.’

  The Tungrian centurions were unusually subdued as they gathered after the parade at which they’d witnessed the crucifixion of Caninus and his cronies, despite the thoroughness with which imperial justice had been administered. Whilst a barely conscious Caninus had, as expected, succumbed to asphyxiation within minutes, unable to use his shattered legs to relieve the pressure on his chest, both Petrus and Tornach had showed every sign of facing protracted deaths, despite both having been soundly scourged before being nailed into position. In perfect silence the assembled men of the three cohorts had listened to their helpless cries for mercy as they had writhed on their crosses to either side of Caninus’s inert corpse, both men panting in pain and terror as the enormity of imperial justice bore down upon them. The chained and shackled line of freshly branded slaves, the only remnant of the bandit army, had filed past the crucified men in silence, their overseers punishing any sound from the shuffling men with swift strokes of their whips. It had been, the officers of the Tungrian cohort agreed, sound punishment swiftly delivered to men that deserved nothing less. Their acting first spear had ordered a gathering of his officers once their men were back in barracks, and he now stood in the middle of his colleagues with a neutral expression, waiting until the last of them was holding a cup of wine.

  ‘Brothers, our first duty is to pay our respects to First Spear Sextus Frontinius in the time-honoured manner. Raise your cups.’ He waited in silence until every man had his cup in the air. ‘To Uncle Sextus! The best damned first spear I ever served under, and taken from us before his time was due! Sextus Frontinius!’ He drained his cup, looking around him as his brother officers echoed his toast and did the same. ‘Before we leave this city I’ll have an altar to his name built into the grain store wall, to mark the place where he fell.’

  He stood for a moment as the other centurions nodded their agreement. Frontinius’s body had been burned the previous evening, his funeral pyre saluted by a march past of both Tungrian cohorts and a deputation from the legion cohort led by a temporarily abashed Belletor, but an altar was the accepted way for a revered officer who fell in battle to be honoured by his men, and Julius knew there would be no shortage of donations to pay for the mason’s careful work.

  ‘But now, my brothers, we have important business to discuss. The matter of First Spear Fontinius’s replacement requires discussion. Whilst the tribune has nominated me, I don’t-’

  A deep ru
mbling voice interrupted him.

  ‘We all know it has to be you, Julius. We don’t need to vote on the subject.’

  ‘Titus-’

  Julius got no further with his reply, as Otho shook his head and interrupted him again.

  ‘It’s you, Julius. We all feel the same way. Now get on with it before I’m forced to beat some common sense into you.’

  Julius saw that all seven centurions gathered around him were nodding agreement.

  ‘Even you, Dubnus? You’ve been heard to voice the opinion that I wasn’t fit to command a legion century, never mind one formed of real fighting men.’

  Dubnus grinned back at him.

  ‘That was before, when I was carrying the pole and pushing soldiers around for you, before I got the chance to serve alongside you. You’ll do.’

  Marcus raised a hand.

  ‘If I might comment, brother?’

  Julius raised his eyebrows and looked up at the ceiling with a smile.

  ‘If only I’d seen Morban and placed money on a lecture from our only properly educated brother I might very shortly be a good deal richer. Go on, Marcus, but keep it quick.’

  His friend returned the smile.

  ‘Your brothers are all expressing the blindingly obvious, Julius. It has to be you. Dubnus, Caelius and I are too wet behind the ears..’ The older centurions all nodded vigorously. ‘Otho, Milo and Clodius are too solid between the ears…’ He ignored the good-natured grumbling that greeted the opinion and pressed on. ‘And Titus…?’

  The massive centurion turned to face him, bending slightly to look him in the face, his eyebrow raised.

  ‘Yes, little brother? Are there ears involved?’

  Marcus kept a commendably straight face.

  ‘Titus is simply too terrifying a prospect for any of us. After all, he is rumoured to collect ears…’

  The big man nodded knowingly, while the men around him muttered their apparent disgust at his evident failure to take offence, as Marcus continued.