Dubnus put a brawny arm around the guide’s shoulder, turning him away from the prisoner.
‘We can’t be far from their camp now, so you and I should go forward and leave these two to watch the prisoner. Are you coming, or do you want to stay here and glare at him too?’
The guide shot a last venomous look at the captured bandit and walked away, speaking quietly into the forest’s silence.
‘Follow me. I know this ground as well as I knew my wife’s body, before they took her from me.’ He vanished into the trees, his passage no noisier than a gentle breeze.
Julius winked at Marcus and the two men watched their friend pad into the forest in Arabus’s wake, his axe held ready to fight. Then Julius leaned over the prisoner, who was still lying on his back.
‘Well, Second Treveri, now that we have some peace and quiet, and that vicious little man isn’t fingering his knife and staring at your throat, perhaps we can have a civilised conversation. Let me make this easy for you. Either you answer every question I ask you quickly, honestly and in a way that doesn’t make me think you’re trying to be clever with me, or I’ll be forced to start carving bits off you, starting with this.’ He gripped the man’s ear with a lightning-fast move, resting the dagger’s cold, minutely jagged edge against the point where ear and scalp joined. ‘In your own time . . .’
The bandit’s eyes rolled helplessly.
‘What do you want to know?’
Marcus squatted down in front of him, shaking his head in mock sadness.
‘What do we want to know? Isn’t that obvious, soldier? We want to know everything.’
Dubnus and Arabus moved noiselessly across the forest’s sun-dappled floor, the big centurion mouthing a silent curse as he wove a sinuous path around the shafts of light lancing down through the forest’s canopy high above them, staying in the shadows to avoid the blink of sunlight on metal. The guide appeared to have got over his anger at being denied the chance to take sharp iron to their prisoner, and led him on with a deft eye for cover, seemingly determined to ensure that their progress would remain undetected. The centurion smiled to himself, reflecting that Julius would have been noisier than both of them put together, but his expression changed abruptly as a hint of putrefaction reached his sensitive nose. He hissed to Arabus, flaring his nostrils to indicate the unexpected smell. The guide padded carefully across to his side, whispering in his ear.
‘We’re close to their camp, I think. They have a habit of using cages to scare off any hunter that stumbles across their hiding places. I’ve found them before, after the bandits have abandoned a camp.’
Dubnus shook his head uncomprehendingly, but the guide simply gestured him on, putting a finger to his lips and moving with exaggerated care, each footstep slow and delicate as they weaved through the undergrowth, and Arabus paused with increasing frequency to ensure that they were unobserved before moving across even the smallest of gaps in the foliage. At the top of a small rise Dubnus realised what he had meant a few minutes before when he had referred to ‘cages’, as a tall arrangement of stout branches, which had been formed into a cylindrical structure, resolved itself out of the surrounding vegetation. The horizontal bars were provided by thickly interweaved strips of bark which were placed to provide a clear view in and out of the cage as much as to anchor the branches together, and the whole thing was secured to the forest floor by deeply buried pegs, each one the width of a man’s thumb. Dubnus stared at the construction with an unhappy certainty as to its contents.
‘Surely not?’
Arabus turned back to him, nodding grimly at his expression of fascinated horror and whispering fiercely in his ear.
‘What else were you expecting? This man Obduro understands the power of terror on men such as these. And on us, for that matter. Come on.’
He led the Tungrian closer, and with every cautious pace the stench worsened, until by the time they were close enough to see into the cage’s shadows it was almost enough to choke Dubnus, despite his experience of battle, of terrible wounds and of bodies left to rot. A corpse lolled back against the bars, its sightless eyes staring at Dubnus’s revolted gaze. The exposed portions of the body were rippling with maggots, and it was only an act of willpower that kept him from throwing up onto the forest floor. Arabus watched as he mastered the urge, his whispered comment harsh with emotion.
‘This man’s fate is a warning, both to his own people and to outsiders. If we are caught approaching their camp we will certainly suffer in exactly the same way.’
He stared at Dubnus with a level gaze, as if waiting for the Tungrian to indicate a retreat, but the big man simply nodded, gesturing to the ground before them. Shrugging, the Gaul turned away from the cage and, bent almost double, led him forward again, his pace even more cautious than before. After fifty more paces he turned his head, putting a hand to his ear.
‘Do you hear that?’
Dubnus listened, concentrating and ignoring the rustling of leaves in the early afternoon’s breeze. The faint sound of men’s voices reached him, their words unintelligible but their tone easy enough to understand. He nodded to the guide, indicating that he should stay where he was squatting, then he flattened himself against the forest floor, worming slowly forward towards the voices, carefully picking up and moving aside anything that might betray his presence by making a noise. The sounds got louder as he crawled closer; a group of men were talking without fear of being overheard and individual words started to make sense. He stopped and listened, guessing that he was still twenty or thirty paces short of them, but the discussion remained impossible to follow and, taking a deep breath, he squirmed forward again, now moving so slowly that his approach was quite literally without noise. The wind rustling the leaves high above his head died away for a moment, and the voices were suddenly disconcertingly clear.
‘. . . and I’m fucking telling you that there’s no way they’ll ever catch us here. He’ll make sure of that; he’ll get them to come at us the long way round, and even if they did find the crossing we’d still be safe on the hill before they were even across the river and ready to fight. And there’s no bloody infantry cohort been raised that could kick us out of those defences, not without artillery, and that legion cohort doesn’t even have a single ballista. They’re clearly not to be trusted with the heavy stuff.’
Another man laughed.
‘You should know about trust and the army!’
Dubnus nodded to himself, having already guessed that the first speaker was another of the Treveri cohort’s deserters. The reply was calm enough, although Dubnus thought he could hear an edge in the man’s voice, and a hint of distaste for the comment.
‘Perhaps I should, if you put it that way. But he’ll make sure we get plenty of warning of any attempt to attack us, and there’s just no way they’re ever going to suspect that he’s . . .’
The wind picked up again, and, apart from a few isolated words, the rest of the sentence was lost in the rustle of leaves. After a moment the men’s audience laughed, and Dubnus realised that there had to be at least twenty of them, from the sound’s volume. He grimaced at his proximity to their camp and started to retreat slowly backwards, sliding away from the danger of discovery as quickly as he dared. Once he had gone fifty paces or so he got cautiously to his feet and retraced his steps to where Arabus still crouched. He tugged at the guide’s shoulder as he passed, pulling the other man along in his wake.
‘It’s time we weren’t here.’
He led the guide back to where the other two men were waiting with their thoroughly cowed prisoner. Julius looked up questioningly as the scouts slipped into the clearing.
‘Find them?’
Dubnus nodded grimly.
‘Yes. And it doesn’t make good telling. No time now though, we need to be . . .’ He put a hand to his belt. ‘Fuck. My bloody dagger’s fallen off my belt. The strap must have finally rotted away.’ He gave Julius and Marcus a significant glance. ‘I’ve been complaining long
enough about the quality of that kit, and now of all times . . . I’ll go and find it, and you lot can head back to meet up with Silus. Wait for me in the same place as we camped last night, and I’ll join you there.’
He turned round without allowing any time for any of them to react, creeping back through the trees until he found the dagger where he’d quietly dropped it during their retreat from the bandit camp. Waiting for a moment to ensure that he was unobserved, he turned north, towards the river, and silently slipped away into the undergrowth.
That evening, with the torches already lit and the streets of Tungrorum emptied of its citizens, Marcus walked wearily up the road from the barracks clustered around the east gate and halted in front of the bandit hunters’ headquarters. The spear-armed man standing guard on the door showed no more curiosity at the presence of a uniformed centurion standing before him in the torchlight than he might have displayed with the arrival of a butcher’s delivery boy. He stood aside and saluted, pointing the way into the building.
‘Prefect’s inside, Centurion.’
Marcus nodded and walked past him into the entrance hall, glancing around at the statuary decorating the room, their shadows seeming to flutter and twitch with each flicker of the torches that lit the open space. An impressive bust of the emperor took pride of place on one side of the door that he presumed led into the building’s main room, while on the other side his eye was taken by a towering female figure mounted on a charging animal, a bow in one hand, the other reaching over her shoulder for an arrow from a painstakingly detailed quiver. Stepping closer, he marvelled at the skill of the man who had conjured the minute details of each arrow’s fletching and the delicate lines of the bow from the solid marble.
‘Good, isn’t it? You could almost wonder why he didn’t carve a bow string to match.’ The Roman turned to find Caninus standing in the open doorway to his office, a slight smile on his face. ‘Everyone that lays eyes on that statue does exactly the same thing. They all lean close enough to almost rub their noses on the arrows in the quiver, then look at the curves in the bow with just that expression you were wearing a moment ago. Whoever it was that sculpted this from bare rock must have been a true master. It was here when I arrived, and I keep it here to remind me of the forest’s terrible power to punish the unwary, even if I prefer the mysteries of Our Lord myself. And, I suppose, to serve as a constant warning of my enemy’s often stated and apparently implacable intention to see me die on an altar dedicated to her.’
Marcus looked back at the statue, realising for the first time that the huntress was mounted on a wild boar. He spoke with his eyes locked on the goddess’s face; it was a classic study of a female divinity that somehow managed to capture both the subject’s beauty and her ferocity in equal measure.
‘I’d taken her for a representation of Diana, but now I see the truth of it. She’s truly magnificent, Prefect, worthy of an imperial palace.’ He turned to face his host, making a formal bow and holding the position for a moment longer than necessary to indicate the nature of his business. ‘This visit is strictly a private matter, Prefect, but the gratitude I must express on behalf of myself and my wife is no less fervent for lacking an official sanction. I heard of your gallantry in rescuing Felicia from a miserable and degrading assault when I came through the gate this evening, and once I had assured myself that she is well I came straight here. I don’t have very long – there’s a centurions’ briefing shortly – but I couldn’t ignore my duty to offer you my thanks.’
Caninus made a slight bow in return.
‘Your thanks are hardly necessary, Centurion Corvus. Any decent man would have done the same. Will you take a cup of wine with me?’
Marcus smiled, nodding.
‘After a long day on the road your offer is more than welcome.’
The prefect turned back into his office and gestured to the Roman to follow him into the brightly lit room. He poured a generous measure of wine into a cup and handed it to his guest, then poured another for himself and raised it to meet Marcus’s.
‘To safe returns.’ They drank, and the prefect raised a hand to indicate the map of the area painted on the wall. ‘And now that you have experienced Arduenna at first hand you will understand better the respect in which we hold the forest, I suspect.’
Marcus smiled wryly.
‘Quite so. Your man Arabus was insistent on the subject.’
Caninus’s smile was equally sardonic.
‘I thought he might be. It was one of the reasons for sending him with you, if truth be told. He’s a believer, and I felt that you gentlemen needed to gain some understanding of the fanaticism that drives these people on. These aren’t just bandits like the men you’ve encountered so far; these are men sworn to a jealous and vicious religion, one that tolerates neither argument nor interference, and which is harsh even with its most devoted followers.’
Marcus took another sip, regarding Caninus over the rim of his cup.
‘And yet you choose to oppose them in the most public way possible, and despite their repeated threats?’
The other man shrugged.
‘What else can I do? If I walk away from here I must thereby accept defeat, and in doing so I will be diminished not only in the eyes of my peers but, worse, in my own estimation. I doubt that I could live easily with such a painful burden. But come now, we’ll not discuss even the hint of such a possibility. Your mission was a success, I take it?’ He raised a hand to forestall a reply. ‘No, I know it’s not your place to tell me any of the details, I simply ask if you felt the journey worthwhile. Did my man Arabus perform as required?’
Marcus smiled, raising his cup for another sip.
‘He did indeed. I also have reason to be grateful to him for not putting an arrow into me when I blundered into his path while he was hunting a boar.’
Caninus raised an eyebrow.
‘Indeed? You were lucky. He’s not the fastest man to loose an arrow, but once he’s committed the shaft it invariably hits what he’s aiming at. Perhaps Arduenna chose to smile on you for that moment.’
This time, Marcus noticed, there was no trace of amusement on his face.
The two tribunes walked out into the gathering of their centurions with the look of men whose fellow feeling, if it had ever existed in the first place, had long since evaporated. Scaurus paused in the doorway for a moment with a cup of wine held in one hand, listening to the babble of conversation.
‘It’s nice to get a decent cup of red for a change, and not that cat’s piss they’ve been serving since we . . .’
‘There were four of them, I heard, all gagging for a piece of uniformed dick . . .’
‘And he’s paid a hundred in gold for a bloody sword! You ask me, that young man’s got . . .’
The two first spears stepped forward, each of them barking an order for his officers to stand to attention. Scaurus waited for the echoes of their orders to die away before speaking.
‘At ease, gentlemen!’
Tribune Belletor stood by his side with a face barely the right side of disgruntled, and Julius leaned closer to Marcus, ignoring the first spear’s warning glance, to mutter in his ear.
‘Their tribune looks like he’s lost a gold aureus and found a copper quadrans. I heard that Scaurus very nearly pulled his iron on the man and was only . . .’
Scaurus spoke again, looking round the gathered officers with a determined expression.
‘Centurions, it’s good to have all of you gathered in one place. If we’re going to work together then we’ll need to break down some of the barriers that traditionally separate auxiliary troops from the legions. I believe that it is these barriers that lead to misunderstandings, and as a result to the kind of unacceptable behaviour that we saw the other night. Behaviour, I will remind you, that had our colleague Prefect Caninus not intervened, would have left an innocent, pregnant woman repeatedly violated, and our cohorts at each other’s throats.’
Scaurus paused, passing a slow
gaze across the faces turned attentively towards him. He’d said much the same to Belletor a few minutes earlier, when expressing his disappointment that the legion cohort’s centurions had not yet managed to unearth the guilty men. Even Frontinius, who found himself cast in the unusual role of peacemaker alongside his colleague Sergius, had commented privately that he would have found the culprits in less than a day.
‘Honey and shit, that’s the way it works. Nice and nasty. Rewards for the men that turn the bastards in, and collective punishment for the whole bloody cohort until they come to their senses.’
Belletor stood alongside Scaurus in unhappy silence while his colleague explained to the centurions what it was he planned for their combined force. He pointed to the map of the area on the wall of the basilica’s main hall, a map which he had requested for the evening’s briefing with a studied mannerliness that had left Procurator Albanus with little option but to agree. The civilian administrator was standing off to one side, and clearly fighting to contain his irritation at seeing a host of army officers in the building where he usually conducted his business.
‘Centurions, we’re here to safeguard the supply of corn to the legion fortresses on the Rhenus. Without that supply their existence becomes precarious, which makes our task of the utmost importance. Exterminating the bandit threat in this part of the province is also going to be of benefit to the local inhabitants, of course, but first and foremost it is about preserving the empire’s north-western flank. As you can see from this map, our destruction of two of the opportunist bands that were troubling the roads to the city means that the most obvious remaining threat to the supply routes to the legions comes from here.’ He slapped his pointer onto the dark green mass of the Arduenna forest. ‘The forest is currently host to the largest of the bandit gangs, perhaps as many as five hundred of them, and they must now be our main focus. When we find and destroy their base of operations, kill as many as we can and scatter the rest, when we have their leader’s head on a spear point . . .’ He paused and looked around the gathered officers with a wry smile. ‘. . . with or without his famous mask, then we will have broken the back of this problem! And make no mistake, there’s nothing mystical about the man, or his followers. He’s just another thug, for all his fearsome reputation, and his gang are no more than that. I don’t know about you, but my experience in my younger days was that when you take down the leader of a gang its members tend to lose heart. When they see the strength we muster, they’ll pretty soon decide to put survival before profit, you can be sure of that! Intimidating civilians and suborning poorly led local auxiliaries is one thing, but facing up to two cohorts of battle-hardened infantry is quite another.’
The Leopard Sword Page 17