by George Green
Galba leant across the table. ‘What’s up?’ he said. Decius was looking at one of the women in a glazed sort of way, and plainly wasn’t going to be much use, but Galba’s eyes were still bright. Serpicus leant forward to meet him.
‘Brutus may need some help in a minute,’ he said quietly.
Galba smiled widely.
‘That should be fun,’ he said. He looked without interest across the room. ‘That lot over there?’ Serpicus nodded. Galba sniffed dismissively and grinned.
‘Miserable lot of bastards. I’d say they deserve whatever lands on them.’
Brutus moved slowly towards the privy, doing the walk that drunk people use which is not quite a stride and not quite a stagger. It took him past the table where the men were sitting. They didn’t look up at him as he approached. If Serpicus still had any doubt about whether they were behaving strangely or not, it vanished then. If Brutus was drunk and walking towards someone and they were to ignore him, it would be like standing at the bottom of a cliff and hearing a landslide starting overhead and not looking up. It would be automatic. The only sort of man who would not look at a drunk Brutus lumbering straight at him would be a man who didn’t want to catch his eye under any circumstances.
As Brutus came level with their table he seemed to lose his balance slightly. He put a foot out to one side and lurched towards them, then stopped, getting his bearings. The man nearest him seemed to flinch but didn’t look up. Brutus put a hand out as if in apology, and he rocked back on his heels. There was a suspended moment. Serpicus saw the nearest man gather his legs under him, and open his mouth to shout.
Then Brutus moved.
He seized the two nearest heads by their hair, one in each hand. The heads came together like cymbals once and were thrown backwards away from him. He grabbed the table edge and threw the table up and towards the men on the far side, knocking them off their stools and pinning them against the wall. The two men at the sides of the table struggled to stand up. The one on the left hardly managed to straighten himself before a huge fist swung into his face. He dropped without a sound. The remaining man reached under his cloak as if for a knife and then hesitated. Serpicus wasn’t surprised, he would have hesitated to take Brutus on alone too. Brutus was close to him, and flight was not an option. The man’s hand came up from under his cloak and there was a flash of metal. Brutus’ arm swung up and away from his body. The metal disappeared as the man’s hand was thrown sideways. Brutus grabbed his shirt and threw him onto the upended table. The two struggling figures still under the table were knocked back down again by the knifeman’s weight. His head struck the table with a loud dull sound and he stayed down, moaning softly. Brutus stood straight, breathing slightly hard and steady as an oak.
Serpicus and Galba hadn’t even made it across the room to help him before it was all over. Galba shrugged and sat down again, enjoying the expression on the other customers’ faces.
Ox came out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on a cloth. He took a bronze cup with an ox-head etched into the side off the bar and sipped from it. He nodded appreciatively and replaced the cup on the bar. He picked up the jug beside it.
‘Anything of mine broken?’ he asked, narrowing his eyes and giving the room an appraising look.
‘No furniture, just heads,’ said Brutus, smiling at him like a slightly naughty favourite son.
Ox gave him a satisfied smile. ‘You are fortunate,’ he said. ‘My tables come expensive.’ He stepped over the nearest prone figure and held out the wine jug to Brutus. ‘But for men’s heads, there is no charge.’
Galba lifted his cup and looked at Serpicus with a thoughtful expression.
‘We haven’t even left Rome yet and people are following us for no apparent reason.’ He took a drink. ‘Things could get complicated before this is over.’
Chapter Fourteen
Within two days and a night Severus had chosen his cohort of soldiers, and an additional half-dozen others who had no legion experience but who had useful talents. They would be used as auxiliaries. Those rejected had walked away in disgust, or been carried off unconscious, or had staggered off shaking their heads in pain and bewilderment. Usually, when men were recruited for this sort of work, they were chosen on the basis of their experience, their reputation and their testimonials. Severus paid scant attention to anyone’s claimed experience, none at all to their reputation and the first soldier who made the mistake of presenting a tablet of written references was invited to put them in a dark and painful place. No one else tried it.
Serpicus was watching carefully and could see what Severus was up to. Those he chose all had certain things in common. They had all answered him back at some point. In fact, most of the men had answered him back at some point, but Serpicus thought he saw a difference. The majority of them had sounded angry, petulant, mutinous. These were rejected. The men Severus chose were different. They stood up to him, told him what they thought, but carried on doing what he had told them to do. Beyond that, they had borne everything he had thrown at them. Naturally, they were all handy with their weapons. All of them had a good deal of combat experience, and it showed.
Then there were the six auxiliaries. Roman commanders liked having auxiliaries, as they swelled numbers and were regarded as expendable. The problem was getting Roman soldiers to accept them. No Roman legionary would ever admit that any man other than another legionary was his equal, and often he would only admit it about men from some legions and not others. He certainly wasn’t going to admit it about auxiliaries, particularly in light of the fact that most of them had been defeated by Roman legions in order to bring them into the Empire in the first place. Officers were usually careful to deploy auxiliaries in such a way that the legions could see that they were in a support role, not part of the main body of troops. Each man Severus had chosen exhibited at least one unusual skill that might be useful to the expedition. There was a small man from Rhodes, dark-skinned almost like a Nubian, who could swing a rope with a noose and throw it thirty paces and land it over a man’s head four times out of five. There were two Persians, both expert archers. There was a German – not from the Treveri, but from the far north – and a huge red-haired Gaul. They were both veterans of the legions with experience of having been officers. They had been cashiered for reasons they didn’t wish to discuss, but neither of them gave the impression that the cause of their disgrace was cowardice.
The sixth man was a knife fighter from Crete. They called him Snake. He owned a collection of blades which he carried in a flat leather wallet strapped to his chest.
‘An impressive collection of cutlery,’ said Severus. Snake looked at him impassively.
‘I eat with my hands,’ he said.
Severus stood back, pointed at a soldier, and indicated to Snake that the space was his for a demonstration.
Snake held a knife in each hand, wickedly sharp double-bladed things, shaped like the horns of a bull with the handle at the forehead, each horn the length of a man’s hand. He dropped into a crouch and advanced on the unfortunate soldier who had been chosen to oppose him. His arms began to circle and pass in front of him, his wrists rotating the knives so that the blades flashed and flickered as they crossed and caught the sunlight. The movements speeded up until the unfortunate soldier was faced with two whirling circles of steel. If he held out his sword then Serpicus could see no other outcome than that his arm would be lopped off. The soldier had come to the same conclusion. He put his shield up in front of himself and looked at Severus with such a piteous expression that every man who saw it burst out laughing.
Severus didn’t smile. He looked at the two men with a critical eye and then turned to one of the laughing soldiers.
‘What would you do if a Cretan came at you like that?’
The laughter quieted but didn’t die as the soldier considered the question.
‘Run like hell, I should think,’ he said eventually, with a rueful expression. Everyone laughed again.
‘An honest soldier, there’s a novelty,’ said Severus and he laughed too, a strange sudden barking sound. It was the first time Serpicus had heard it. It didn’t sound like it saw much daylight.
‘Come on, anyone,’ Severus said, the laugh disappearing as suddenly as it had appeared. ‘There are a bunch of these Cretan bastards and one of them is coming straight at you just like Snake did to Diomedes a minute ago. The knives are coming right at your head. What are you going to do about it?’
‘Use a very long spear?’ said Diomedes, the soldier who had originally faced the Cretan. Serpicus listened critically. Now that he wasn’t in immediate danger he was standing up and thinking hard. Not the bravest soldier in the bunch perhaps, but he wasn’t going to be caught out next time. Maybe he was one to watch.
‘Not such a bad idea,’ said Severus. ‘Though if he once got past it there is no way to recover.’ He turned to the Cretan. ‘What would you suggest we do if we run up against your countrymen?’
‘Push Snake out in front of us and let him sort them out, he’s the expert,’ drawled another soldier. Everyone except the Cretan and Severus laughed.
Serpicus watched as the Cretan stood up and slipped the knives back into their sheaths each with a single deft movement. The soft leather wallet held them safe but made it easy to find what he needed. As the wallet opened Serpicus saw a line of shining blades, all of different lengths and shapes. The Cretan took out a small knife, the sort of thing you’d use to peel an apple, and folded the wallet before putting it away carefully in his shirt.
‘You can indeed keep a Cretan away for a time with a long spear,’ he said, looking carefully down as he used the fruit-knife deftly to clean his thumbnail. ‘Even better if there are two or three of you with spears so he can’t work his way around to the side of you.’ He looked at the nails on his other fingers appraisingly. ‘But don’t let him get too close or the spear won’t save you. And it will only work if there is one Cretan. If there are two men then one or the other will get you.’
‘Remember that. Spear possibly fine for dealing with one Cretan,’ said Severus. ‘Anyone got any other ideas?’
‘Bash him with a shield and then hit him with an axe,’ said another man, leaning backwards against a wooden post with his arms folded.
Severus said nothing, but looked around enquiringly.
‘Archers,’ said one of the two soldiers that Severus had hit in the face on the first day. Serpicus remembered how the blood had dried and covered his lower face like a mask. ‘Lots of arrows. Don’t stop till the buggers look like dead hedgehogs. Don’t need to get anywhere near the knives.’
Snake looked at them both with dark eyes and nodded his head slowly. ‘The arrows might work,’ he said gently, as if turning the idea over. ‘If the Cretan stood still long enough to let the archers shoot at him.’ Serpicus had a sense that someone was about to learn something. ‘Of course, he might not.’
The Cretan’s arm flickered forward like the striking head of his namesake and there was a flash of sunlight on metal and a soft dead sound, followed by a shout of surprise. The reclining soldier swore and jumped upright. The fruit-knife was quivering in the wood next to his face, an arrow’s width from his cheek.
‘Bastard!’ he hissed. He pulled out his sword and advanced on the Cretan, who stood still and impassive. Severus put out a restraining hand and the soldier subsided into resentful muttering. The Cretan looked thoughtful and spoke seriously.
‘The long spear works so long as the Cretan has no knives to throw,’ he said, ‘but keep your shield up.’ He smiled. ‘Just in case.’
‘Remember that,’ said Severus, looking around the men. ‘Spears fine in principle, but watch out for knives.’
‘It is true that you can shoot arrows from a distance at a Cretan with a knife,’ the Cretan said. ‘You can even, as you suggest, try to bash him with a shield and then hit him with an axe.’ He walked over to the post and retrieved his knife. He held it up next to the soldier’s face. ‘You can indeed do all those things,’ he said quietly. ‘But don’t expect him to wait for you while you make up your mind what to do.’ He tapped the blade against the soldier’s breastplate. ‘Whatever you decide, you’ll only get one chance to kill him. Don’t miss.’
Severus looked around. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Let’s get on with practising that bashing and hitting.’ He looked hard at the soldier whose cheek Snake had grazed with the knife. ‘Just in case you get lucky and the Cretans allow you close enough to do that.’
Chapter Fifteen
Serpicus and Galba sat watching the men training. Brutus had got bored and was cantering a horse along the side of the exercise field, practising a Thracian trick that Galba had described to him. It involved jumping off his horse with both hands on the saddle pommel, hitting the ground with both feet and then jumping back on again. Serpicus suspected that Galba had been only half serious when he described it, but Brutus declared himself determined to master it. Watching him, Serpicus felt that he’d probably succeed eventually, if he didn’t kill himself first.
Serpicus glanced at the drilling soldiers. Decius was in the centre of their ranks. Severus had refused to take the youngster if he didn’t train with the others. Decius hadn’t argued, and although at that precise moment, practising manoeuvres at double-time in the midday sun carrying a full pack and weapons, he looked as though he was about to fall flat on his face with exhaustion, Serpicus suspected he was rather enjoying himself.
Serpicus had to admit that Brutus and Galba had been right. Severus was exactly the right man to organize the expedition. Within a few days of him taking over, the soldiers were moving as a unit. Once the soldiers were working to his satisfaction, Severus left them in the charge of one of the ex-officers named Scipio, a man with a diagonal scar on his face who, it transpired, had been broken back to the ranks for hitting an officer.
‘Insubordination?’ said Brutus doubtfully, when Severus told him. ‘What if he does the same thing to you?’
Severus shook his head. ‘Do you know the penalty for hitting an officer?’
Brutus thought about it. ‘In the field, usually immediate execution. In a camp in peace-time, you’d get maybe a hundred lashes, all of your pay for the next hundred years or so would be used to pay off the quartermaster’s gambling debts, you’d lose anything remotely resembling a privilege for at least two lifetimes, you’d get several months in solitary while being beaten half to death every night by all the other officers, and when they eventually let you out of solitary it would be latrine duty every waking moment. If you were lucky. And any time there was any fighting to be done, you’d be placed right in the centre of the front rank every time.’ Brutus shook his head. ‘It’s better to hit an officer during a battle, execution is kinder.’
Severus did something with his lips that might have been a smile. ‘Scipio hit an officer during a battle. In Galicia. They were attacking up a slope and were under heavy fire, rocks, arrows, anything the defenders could find. The officer ordered his cohort to advance into a suicidal position. Pointless, stupid. Scipio refused to pass the order to his men, and, when the officer threatened to court-martial him, Scipio hit him. Broke his jaw. Then he left the officer under a tree while he led his men in a flanking movement and captured the position with only light casualties.’
Galba blinked in surprise and let out a low whistle. ‘He disobeyed a direct order to attack and then hit the officer?’
Severus nodded. ‘Exactly.’
‘Then why isn’t he dead?’
‘That’s my point. If Scipio was just insubordinate, or couldn’t control his temper or was plain stupid, there wouldn’t have been a court martial. We all know that his commander would have just carved him like a goat there and then and sent a limb to each of four different countries.’ Severus leant towards Brutus, who was still looking puzzled. ‘Think about it. Whoever his commander was, he must have thought Scipio was more useful alive and insubordinate than dead, or he wouldn’t be here.
So, useful, pig-headed and brave. A man to have near you, no?’
Brutus shrugged. ‘True. Although he still might be angry and stupid as well as useful, and his usefulness might be something we can’t use.’
‘We’ll find out soon enough,’ said Severus. ‘Meantime, he’s my lieutenant.’
Severus handed over command and walked away. Scipio started bawling orders with the air of a man who knew what he was doing.
‘Where to now?’ Serpicus asked, looking at Severus’ back.
Severus didn’t answer, but he was heading towards the docks.
‘Come on,’ said Brutus happily, punching Galba on the shoulder. ‘I want to see this.’
* * *
A carriage took them to Ostia, leaving them to walk the last few hundred paces on their own. Brutus, Galba and Serpicus trailed in Severus’ wake, smiling like schoolboys following a teacher on his way to catch out other boys misbehaving. The dockside was in turmoil along almost its entire length, with a dozen big ships being loaded and unloaded at once. The only oasis of calm was directly opposite Blaesus’ ship. The same pile of supplies was on the wharf, each case and sack with what looked like a large ‘J’ daubed on them carelessly in rust-red paint. The letter might have been Blaesus’ mark, or it might have been for the ship’s name, the Juno. Whichever it was, the supplies were mostly still on the dockside, not on the boat. Even the one man who had been loading earlier had disappeared.
Severus walked onto the small pier at which the Juno was moored and wandered along it for the length of the ship. The dockers who should have been loading the ship were dozing or playing dice in a ragged group, sheltering from the sun in the shadow of the stern. Cinna the captain was nowhere to be seen. He had made the ship ready, in the sense that the rigging was set, the oars were shipped, the hull was caulked. Loading the supplies he obviously felt wasn’t his responsibility.