‘Very well, if you’re all certain this is the right approach to these animals, then I am happy to go with the weight of opinion. But I won’t risk any of my senior officers being taken and butchered in front of our wall. Tribune Scaurus, you can send one of your centurions to talk to the tribesmen instead. That way if they decide to indulge their desire for revenge on the man we send to negotiate with them, we’ll have limited our losses. There, that’s a decision made. Wine, gentlemen?’
With the conference completed Marcus had promptly volunteered for the task of going over the wall, and had resisted Scaurus’s efforts to persuade him that another man might be better suited.
‘With all respect, Tribune, who else can you send with a clear conscience? Both Otho and Clodius could start a fight in a temple of the Vestals, neither Milo nor Caelius has the words needed, and if you send Titus he’ll just spend the whole time looking down his nose at the Sarmatae and making it very clear to them what scum they are without ever saying a word. It has to be me.’
Scaurus had played a calculating look on him for a moment before responding.
‘And Dubnus? I note you didn’t mention him? Dubnus doesn’t have a wife and small child to be left alone in the world, whereas you, Centurion, have responsibilities to worry about.’
Marcus had shaken his head, putting a hand to his face.
‘But Dubnus isn’t Roman, Tribune. His skin and his eyes are the wrong colour. For this to work, these people need to believe they’re negotiating with a man with the power to make decisions. And that means it has to be me.’
Scaurus was standing alongside Belletor in a small group of officers a dozen paces distant from where Julius was preparing Marcus for his descent from the wall’s top, his face set in stony lines as he listened to Belletor holding forth on some subject or other, shooting the occasional glance at his centurions. Tribune Sigilis made an excuse and walked the short distance to join the Tungrian officers, holding his hand out to Marcus.
‘You’re a brave man, Centurion, and you have my respect. I’ll pray to Mars that you come back to us without suffering any harm.’
Marcus smiled back at him, a wry grimace twisting his lips.
‘It seemed to work yesterday, Tribune.’
Sigilis laughed, shaking his head gently.
‘Up there on the hillside? I never actually got round to praying, if the truth be told. I was rather too busy discovering what it was like to take sharp iron to my fellow man.’ He gave Julius a sideways look. ‘If I might have a moment with the centurion, First Spear?’
Julius raised an eyebrow, nodding slowly.
‘Of course, sir.’
He walked away down the wall, and the two men smiled at the sight of the soldiers in his path stiffening under his scrutiny.
‘Any second now he’ll see something that doesn’t match his expectations, and then there’ll be fur in the air. .’
Almost on cue Julius snapped down on a soldier who had unwittingly attracted his ire, withering the offender with a swift and vicious tirade of abuse, and the two men shared a look of sympathy. Sigilis leaned forward and spoke quietly.
‘We still need to talk, Centurion. I had thought to wait until you decided that the time was right, but since you seem determined to put yourself in harm’s way it’s important for you to know that you may still have some blood relatives left alive. I don’t know who or where, but my father’s investigator told us that he suspected some other members of your family might also have avoided the destruction of their line, although he was unable to prove anything.’
Marcus nodded, his face set in stonelike immobility.
‘That’s not a hope I can afford to encourage, given the likelihood of disappointment should I ever find myself in Rome again, but I thank you for the concern.’
Sigilis shook his head urgently.
‘One more thing. When they lower you down from the wall, just remember that there is still revenge to be taken for all those who died unjustly alongside your father. Make sure you climb back onto this parapet, Centurion, since you are likely to be the only man left alive in the entire world with the ability to exact that revenge.’
He nodded to Marcus and turned to his colleagues. Julius walked back to join his friend, signalling to his chosen man, who promptly issued orders for a rope ladder to be lowered from the parapet. Turning to his friend, he took Marcus’s hand and put an arm around his shoulders.
‘Good luck. Come back alive.’
The Roman eased his weight up and over the raised turf parapet, climbing carefully down the ladder until he felt solid ground beneath his boots, then looked up, gesturing to Julius for the ladder to be pulled up. Turning to face the Sarmatae, he saw that his presence on the ground before the wall had already been noticed. Half a dozen men had run forward to the edge of the safe distance from the defences, just outside the Thracian archers’ maximum range, and now stood with arrows nocked to their own bows, while another ran shouting to the sprawling mass of tents that had sprung up late the previous evening when the barbarians had realised that a swift victory would not be forthcoming. Taking a deep breath he stepped forward out of the wall’s shadow, pacing slowly forward with both arms raised well away from his sides. As he walked towards the barbarian camp, a group of horsemen cantered out of the tents, trotting steadily up the valley’s slope until they were abreast of the waiting archers. Continuing at the same slow pace, he walked to within a few paces of the bowmen, close enough to see that the bone heads that tipped their arrows were blackened and discoloured with the same poison that had killed his horse. One of the riders waiting behind them called out to him, his face grim below a helmet that was the matching twin of the one taken from their captive the night before, and which Marcus was carrying in his right hand. A long lance was couched loosely in his right hand, the point only feet from Marcus’s mailed chest.
‘No further, Roman. If you’ve come to gloat then you’ve picked the wrong man to make sport of. We saw the glow of your pyres on the northern peak reflected in the clouds last night, and I see you carry my father’s helm.’
Marcus bent slowly, placing the helmet on the ground before him with what he deemed to be appropriate respect for its wearer’s status. The rider placed both hands on the horn of his saddle, bending forward to look at the Roman more closely.
‘I am Galatas Boraz, son of King Asander Boraz and in my father and my uncle’s absence, the leader of this host. State your purpose in putting your life in my hands, and do so quickly. My patience is not at its best today.’
Marcus stepped forward a pace, and the arrowheads tracked his movement, the archers’ knuckles whitening on their bows. The men arrayed around the prince were hard faced, their expressions giving him nothing beyond simple enmity, while the warrior mounted on Galatas’s right stared down at him with evident disgust from beneath the brim of a dented legionary’s helmet clearly looted from the scene of a recent Roman defeat.
‘I am Marcus Tribulus Corvus, Centurion of the First Tungrian Cohort and deputed by my tribune to enter discussions with you as to your intentions. I-’
Galatas leaned back in his saddle, his laughter both harsh and terse.
‘My intentions? I intend getting my horsemen around that wall and riding down every man that hides behind it before I carry off the gold that waits for me.’ He sat forward in the saddle and regarded Marcus levelly for a moment before speaking again. ‘I will trade information with you, Roman, since you face my kontos without any sign of fear. Only a few of my father’s men have returned to our camp with the tale of defeat, and none of them know what happened to the king. Tell me truly, what was the fate of my father and my uncle?’
Marcus grimaced.
‘For a time it seemed as if your attack would force us off the hill, but we were reinforced at a vital time in the fight, and took the field with much slaughter. We burned a thousand bodies and took twice as many prisoners, including your father. He is being treated with the appropriate respect d
ue to a king, but he is badly wounded. Our doctor is providing him with the best medical care possible, but it is not yet clear whether he will live or die. As to your uncle, I have no news.’
The rider nodded grimly, shooting a meaningful glance at an older man on his left.
‘Very well.Your turn. What would you know from me?’
Marcus looked up at him for a moment before speaking again.
‘You speak excellent Latin. I would very much like to know how this is.’
Galatas pulled a face at the unexpected mundanity of the question, but answered quickly enough.
‘My father had all of his sons taught the Roman speech and letters. He said that we could never really understand our enemy unless we could read their writings, and so it has proven. Which makes it my turn again. What is so important that you have been sent out here to discuss? The news of my father’s capture could just as easily have been shouted down from your wall without putting a man such as yourself at risk of being killed by an overeager archer, or dragged apart by my household guard. I must warn you, the men around me are eager to have you for a plaything to avenge the harm done to our king.’
The Roman looked up at the hard-faced man on Galatas’s right, meeting the murderous intent in his eyes with a flat stare.
‘You will have noted that I came to you unarmed, as a mark of our seriousness in seeking to negotiate some form of agreement to end this dispute.’ His voice hardened from its carefully controlled tone of reason, an edge of iron creeping in as his anger swelled at the looks being cast down at him. ‘But I will back down before no man. Grant me the loan of your sword and then release your dogs, and we’ll see who’s left standing by the time twenty heartbeats have passed.’
The Sarmatae leader laughed again, a little less tersely this time, and the smile that spread across his face appeared genuine.
‘If only you sat where I did, Roman! You must have fruits the size of an ox’s danglers to threaten this man.’ He gestured to the warrior wearing the captured helmet. ‘Amnoz here is the champion of my father’s bodyguard and a murderous bastard besides. There is not a man in this camp who could best him in combat.’
Marcus shrugged.
‘No-one lives forever. Arm me, Prince Galatas, and I will demonstrate the truth of that statement to him. Either that, or tell your champion to treat an envoy who has come only to talk, and is not equipped to fight, with a little more respect.’
Galatas’s smile was replaced by a frown.
‘For “an envoy that has come only to talk” you’re a little more aggressive than I would have expected. I have enough strength out here to wipe your army away without trace, given the favour of the gods, and yet here you are offering to take on my greatest warrior just for breathing heavily at you?’
Marcus smiled and bowed slightly.
‘My apologies, Prince Galatas, it’s a bad habit of mine. By all means please tell your man Amnoz that his appearance is as terrifying as it is martial, and that I am quaking with fear just to be in his presence.’ The tone of his voice, and the smouldering look he cast at Amnoz left the bodyguard in no doubt as to his real feelings, but Marcus switched his gaze back to the prince and softened his tone. ‘So, to business, your highness?’
The Sarmatae prince nodded wearily.
‘Say what you have to say.’
‘Simply this, Prince Galatas. We will do everything in our power to aid your father’s recovery from his wound, and your defeated kinsmen will not be harmed in any way as long as they remain peaceable. We have more than enough food for a long siege, and your warriors will be fed just as well as our own soldiers. You are more than welcome to camp here in the valley and stare at our wall for as long as you like, or at least for as long as you have the food to sustain you, but any further attempt to break into our defences will be met with the same rough treatment as your attempt to take the northern hill. We have an inexhaustible supply of wood for pyres, and we will burn as many men as you see fit to send at us. Or. .’
He paused, and the prince leaned forward in his saddle again.
‘Or what? Is this the point where you offer me some honeyed words to make the bad taste in my mouth go away?’
Marcus shook his head.
‘Far from it, Prince Galatas. I am simply instructed to point out that Rome and the Sarmatae people have a rich history of collaboration over the last century. We fought together against the Dacians back in the time of the Emperor Trajan, and more recently your king Zanticus sent eight thousand horsemen to serve with our army in Britannia. Might this not be another opportunity for us to unite our forces, or at least to coexist in peace?’
The man sitting to Galatas’s left laughed long and hard, then lifted a leg to jump down from his horse. Hawk-faced, and with a beard that was grizzled with grey, he stood before Marcus with his hands on his hips and a hard, challenging smile. His Latin was equally as polished as the prince’s.
‘Zanticus? That fat, bald, pop-eyed old fart? Zanticus found himself over a barrel with three legions up his arse, that’s why he gave up the horsemen, and returned one hundred thousand of your people he was holding captive. When my brother Asander heard the tidings of that defeat, he and I went out to the sacred sword that is proudly sheathed in the soil of our homeland. We poured a libation of the best wine to its spirit, and gave the blade a taste of our blood. The king swore never to give fealty to Rome, and that he would find a way to make your emperor regret his presumption that the defeat of one hapless fool is the defeat of us all.’
Marcus inclined his head in recognition of the point, glancing up at Galatas with an eyebrow raised in question. The prince sighed quietly.
‘This is Inarmaz, my uncle on my mother’s side, and my father’s strongest ally. Over one third of the men in our host owe their fealty to him.’
Marcus nodded his understanding.
‘And he was the first to make common cause with the king when he went to the ox hide?’
This time Galatas’s smile was without mirth.
‘You know our ways then, do you Roman? Yes, my father skinned a bull with his own hands and sat on the hide still bloody from the task, challenging his kinsmen to join him in this sacred deed.’
‘And if the king dies? I swear to you that I will bring his body to you should he lose this last fight, just as I have brought you his helmet as a sign of good faith. What if I stand before you again with your father’s body in my arms?’
Inarmaz replied before Galatas had the chance to respond, his answer both instant and stern.
‘We drove a plentiful supply of cattle along behind our spears, and the blade of my kontos is still sharp. Asander Boraz’s death would sadden us all, but it would change nothing, Roman. And that, I think, is enough of your efforts to turn us from the path of war. The next time we meet you would be well advised to come armed and ready to back your words with your blade, but whether armed or not you can be assured that I will put your head on my long spear. This I will swear on the bloody hide that brought me here to make war on your accursed empire.’
He spat on the ground at Marcus’s feet and turned away, and the king’s son shrugged expressionlessly down at the Roman.
‘I suggest you return to your own side of the wall, before the temptation to sheathe iron in your flesh becomes too much for my men to resist any longer.’
‘They could be bluffing, of course, to make us believe that it’s in our interests to keep the king alive rather than quietly put him to the knife in the hopes of ending the war he started?’
Marcus shook his head in answer to his tribune’s question.
‘I’d say not, Tribune. The prince struck me as being sincere enough in following his father’s lead, and the king’s brother by marriage has the look of a rabid dog. If the king dies I believe we’ll face exactly the same threat as if he lives.’
‘Whereas if he lives, perhaps he’ll feel sufficiently grateful to end the war?’
The officers turned to face Belletor,
but it was left to Gerwulf to voice what they were all thinking.
‘Not likely, Tribune. Once a king has taken oaths on the bloody hide he is bound to pursue his destiny to either victory or defeat. And the men waiting beyond our walls can hardly be said to have suffered defeat yet, even if we did stop their attack on the north ridge.’
Belletor sighed with frustration.
‘Then we should strike back at them and clear them away. Surely a surprise attack, perhaps at night. .’
‘Would in all likelihood only end in disaster.’ Every eye turned back to Scaurus in his place at the far end of the table. ‘Five cohorts, all but two of which have never worked together before and most of whom are inexperienced at night fighting? It would be the toss of a coin, but my money would be on these Sarmatae being better at fighting in the dark than most of our men.’ He gestured to Gerwulf. ‘Our Quadi allies excepted, of course. It would be a brave commander who would abandon the security of a well-defended position to risk such a gamble, given the empire’s rather robust approach to punishment in the event of such a spectacular potential failure.’
Belletor sat in silence for a moment, clearly musing on the rumours they had all heard from Rome on the subject of the young emperor’s rule, tales of military officers ordered to commit suicide for the smallest of perceived failings, then spoke again.
‘So all that we can do is wait behind these walls for the enemy to get bored, or more likely to run out of supplies? In that case, I’m going to my bed. Wake me if anything happens.’
He stood, stretched and left the room. After a long silence Scaurus looked around at his remaining colleagues with a raised eyebrow.
‘For my part I’ve had far too interesting a night to get to sleep that easily, and with that many of the enemy at our walls; I think it would be wise if someone were to stay awake. An early lunch, perhaps?’
The group repaired to his tent and ate a hearty meal while Scaurus and Gerwulf exchanged stories of their respective military careers and Marcus, Sigilis and the Thracian prefect listened with interest. As Scaurus related the story of their war with the British tribes the previous year, Gerwulf listened intently, nodding as the Roman described their various actions in detail. When the story was done he looked at Scaurus with a new respect.
The Wolf's gold e-5 Page 16