Julius nodded.
‘This Purta must have scoured the entire plain for every slave he could buy or take. No wonder he was happy to spend his labour so cheaply yesterday if he had this lot in reserve to throw at us. Obviously he came prepared.’ He turned to Scaurus, straightening his back and saluting. ‘The cohorts will be ready for action soon enough, Tribune. I suggest we parade them outside the barracks and get ready to sell ourselves as expensively as we can. It’s been a pleasure serving with you, sir, and . . .’
His eyes narrowed as a distant trumpet sounded from the west, beyond the barbarians, answered a moment later by another which seemed to come from the hills to the east. Scaurus leant forward over the wall’s parapet, ignoring the risk of a Sarmatae arrow to stare out over the enemy host.
‘That sounded like one of ours . . .’
Leontius hurried up the steps behind them, pulling on his helmet and joining Scaurus at the parapet with a look of disbelief. The horns sounded again, and as they looked out over the corpse-strewn battlefield Julius gestured at a point beyond the enemy host.
‘My eyes may be deceiving me, but those look like ours . . .’
Staring out across the Sarmatae host, Marcus found what Julius was indicating, a line of armoured men made tiny by the distance.
‘They’re not advancing.’
Leontius snorted in dark amusement.
‘Nor would you be, Centurion, if you came round that corner and found yourself face-to-face with that many barbarian horsemen. I’d imagine that they’re working like madmen to get their stakes in the ground, while their officers frantically try to decide whether they should attack, defend or just make a run for it and pretend that they were never here.’
Julius glanced at him with an amused look, then turned to Marcus.
‘Your eyes are sharper than mine, Centurion. What emblem can you see on their banners?’
The Roman stared out at the legion’s rapidly forming line.
‘A lion, First Spear.’
The burly senior centurion turned back to Leontius with a smirk.
‘In which case, I think you can stop worrying about those lads turning tail, that’s the Thirteenth Gemina out there. First Spear Secundus won’t be countenancing anything of the sort.’
‘Excellent work, Gaius! Young Leontius will go back to Rome with a ringing commendation, and doubtless a quick step up the ladder for stopping the Sarmatae for long enough that we could bottle them up. He was decent enough to brief me properly as to what your men did last night, and from what I’ve heard you clearly played a key part in this whole thing.’
Legatus Albinus had ridden into the fort from the east just before dark at the head of two cohorts of legionaries, ending any lingering risk that the Sarmatae might attempt one last all-out drive to cross the ditch and escape the trap in which they were caught. He and Scaurus were alone in the fort’s headquarters while Leontius assisted the Fifth Macedonica’s broad stripe tribune in bringing his men forward through the fort to hold the obstacle overnight. Scaurus shook his head disparagingly at his mentor’s praise.
‘We were in the right place at the right time, Legatus, that’s all it was. Tribune Leontius is the man who made this fort ready to repel any attack up the valley, which is more than many of his colleagues might have done.’
Albinus smiled knowingly.
‘Understood, young man. But I’ll make sure your part in this is recognised, one way or another. You’re too good an officer to be left running an auxiliary cohort for much longer.’
‘Thank you, sir. And as for our enemy?’
The legatus smiled broadly.
‘Once Leontius’s dispatch alerted us to the fact that we’d been fed misleading intelligence, Pescennius Niger and I agreed that our only course of action was to advance through the mountains, and come at the enemy from the rear, using Stone Fort as the anvil for our hammer.’ He paused, raising his eyebrows at the tribune. ‘Tremendously risky, of course. What if we’d got here and found that the Sarmatae had already smashed through you, and were rampaging off into the province, eh? That’s the kind of outcome that has a man falling on his own sword, so I really can’t imagine what can have possessed my colleague to accept such a hasty course of action, although I suspect his first spear might have played a large part in overcoming his natural caution. He is a rather fearsome individual once his temper’s aroused, and since he’d been urging caution as to how much of the intelligence from within the Sarmatae camp we believed, he was practically ablaze when we discovered the truth.’
He grinned triumphantly at Scaurus, waving a hand in the air in the manner of a man accepting the plaudits of a grateful people.
‘But it seems to have worked out rather well, all things considered. The only ways out of this valley other than through this fort are the two valleys that combine to the west of here, and we have them both blocked by large forces of infantry behind nice strong turf walls and with plenty of wooden stakes set up to prevent any foolishness by the enemy’s horsemen. There are auxiliary cohorts dug in on the high ground on all sides with archer and bolt-thrower support, so if the enemy do try to make a run for it over the hills we’ll chop them to ribbons. And if they try to renew their attack on Stone Fort then we’ll just swing the hammer and smash them against your walls. We have the Sarmatae hemmed in, Gaius, and Purta’s balls in the palm of our hand, which will make the agreement of terms that favour Rome’s interests relatively simple if he doesn’t want to find his head on a sharpened stick.’
Scaurus raised an eyebrow.
‘You’ll make peace with him, after what he’s done here, Legatus?’
Albinus smiled beneficently back at him.
‘Oh yes, I have explicit orders from the provincial governor, and more than likely from the emperor above him. It’s not in Rome’s interests to slaughter these people, Tribune, because if we do we’ll just end up with the next generation of the little bastards champing at the bit to come and get their revenge. Whereas if we make peace and then police it strongly enough they’ll just have to get on with their lives, a good part of which will consist of buying as many of our luxuries as they can afford. They’ll pay with gold, and horses, and whatever crop they can spare, and I need hardly remind you that the empire stands in dire need of all three of those commodities. On top of which, they’ll make an effective buffer against barbarians from further north, whereas if we liquidate them we’ll have to start afresh with whoever moves in to claim their tribal lands. And Mithras knows that every bloody barbarian starts out thinking he can push his way into Rome if he kicks at the door with enough force. The governor believes it’s better to deal with people who’ve already learned their lesson the hard way, at the hands of men like you and I, and who’s to say he’s wrong? So yes, we’ll negotiate a peace treaty with Purta and send him on his way, with the appropriate hostages taken, of course.’
‘And the gold that my idiot colleague Belletor saw fit to bestow upon Balodi? It’s fairly clear that he cemented his usurped position as king by making an offering of the coin to Purta in return for his backing.’
Albinus shook his head, making the warding sign at the mention of the dead tribune’s name.
‘Domitius Belletor doesn’t seem to have been much of a judge of men, does he? May the gods preserve us both from a misjudgement of that order. If what you say is true, then Purta can buy his release from the trap we have him in with gold as well as the lives of his children. A day or two watching our soldiers fortify the hills around his camp ought to provide him with a decent enough incentive.’
The two legati met Purta on the far side of a newly constructed bridge over the fort’s western ditch, inside the hollow square of the Thirteenth Legion’s five thousand men, whose first spear oversaw proceedings with a sharp eye and a sharper tongue. The auxiliary cohorts that had defended the fort lined the ditch that had seen so much bloodshed, their shields four ranks deep behind the earth wall in a deliberately impressive show of strength. Th
e legion’s centurions served as the senior officers’ honour guard, a circle of sixty hard, forbidding faces into which Purta and his fellow nobles walked with their swords held out in both hands, as instructed. Clodius Albinus waited in silence as the king and his men presented their weapons to the legion’s first spear, who subjected them to a careful inspection in order to confirm that they were of sufficient quality to count as the first peace offerings. With the enemy leaders disarmed, Albinus stepped forward to face the defeated Sarmatae ruler. He looked the king up and down with a grim stare before speaking.
‘This is not a negotiation, King Purta, and the terms I am about to impose upon you are not a proposal. To put it bluntly, you have gambled and lost. You chose to chance your arm against the army of the greatest empire the world has ever seen, and you have failed. You can either have peace, on our terms, or you can return to your people and tell them to arm themselves for a short and brutal fight. Our archers and bolt throwers will rain sharp iron into you from all sides, and when we judge the time is right we will send our legionaries forward to grind out any last vestiges of resistance. Then, when we’ve inevitably won that fight, given we have your exits barred and men on the high ground to all sides, your people will be enslaved. Not just these men here, but your entire nation. I am ordered by the emperor either to make peace, here, now and on Rome’s terms, or to empty your lands of every man, woman and child in order to enable the settlement of more amenable neighbours. If you make it necessary I will simply erase your tribe from history and repopulate your land.’
He raised a piece of paper.
‘The terms the emperor offers you are these. Firstly, you will return the gold which was recently paid to your servant Balodi as a sign of good faith. Any of the gold which has been dispersed will be replaced from your own treasury. Any shortfall thereafter will be recompensed to the empire in the form of slaves, each of whom will be reckoned in at half the market rate to account for the likely oversupply and consequent fall in their sale price.
‘Secondly, you will provide Rome with a further five thousand horsemen for service on the empire’s borders. Thirdly, you will present your own children and those of your nobles to act as hostages. They will be raised in Rome, trained to be model Roman citizens, and their safety will be the reward you will earn for your compliance with the terms of this treaty. We will return them when they are ready to rule in your places, at which point you will abdicate in their favour. Fourthly, you will submit to frequent and robust policing of these terms by our legions, which will be free to march across your lands without hindrance. Any gathering of more than one hundred men will be conducted under the control of Roman officers, and any such gathering which is unsupervised will be considered as an act of war. And lastly, you will free every Roman citizen currently enslaved by your people immediately. And let me warn you, Purta, that if in the course of policing this treaty our officers discover any evidence of continued enslavement of even a single Roman citizen, they will be authorised to burn the settlement in question to the ground, and to enslave every man, woman and child they can lay their hands on.’
He looked the Sarmatae king up and down with a look of disdain.
‘You have no choice in the matter of these demands other than whether to submit to them peacefully or at the point of a spear with your own shipment to Rome for public execution a consequent inevitability. Decide now.’
Purta bowed his head briefly in submission.
‘I will comply with these terms.’
Albinus nodded tersely, passing the paper to his clerk.
‘Wise, Purta, given that you have no real choice. Be very clear though, that this peace will be policed by men like these.’ Albinus waved an arm at the centurions arrayed about them. ‘Rome will have peace on its own terms, with routine patrols across your lands to ensure that no further stupidity of the sort we’ve seen here is allowed to take root. You will be king, but your position will be underwritten and controlled by Roman arms, and you will be subject to very close scrutiny.’
Purta nodded again, his face set in impassive lines. Albinus gestured to the surviving nobles from Balodi’s tribe, huddled under the Tungrians’ spears on the far side of the bridge.
‘These men, however, do not come under the terms of this agreement. Their former king made a formal agreement to remove them from the war and to return to his homeland, a pledge that was agreed by all of his nobles but then repudiated by his father’s brother when he murdered Galatas. The king’s murderer was then foolish enough to bring them to your side in defiance of this agreement, and he has therefore doomed them all to slavery, without exception. They will carry out whatever labour Rome sees fit for them for the rest of their lives, and will content themselves that the alternative was a slow and bloody execution. I intend to sell them into the service of Rome’s mines in the valley of the Ravenstone. They can spend the rest of their miserable lives tearing gold from the mountains in the service of the empire, and providing her with the treasure she needs to remain strong in the face of threats like these. They will all march south to the mine under guard, with one exception, and none of them will ever be freed to return to their homes. This is the price that must be paid by every man who reneges on an agreement with Rome. One man, however, has committed crimes too great for me to ignore, or to punish with simple servitude. Bring him forward!’
He stared into Balodi’s face with an expression of contempt as the king was forced to his knees at the edge of the circle of centurions.
‘This man agreed a treaty with Rome without ever intending to honour either its terms or its spirit. He enslaved hundreds of Roman citizens, and therefore presided over their degradation and murder, and it gives me great pleasure to order his execution here and now, as a salutary lesson for you all. Tribune?’
He gestured to Scaurus, who nodded to Julius. The first spear turned to Marcus, extending a hand to point at Balodi.
‘Centurion, exact the justice you promised the veteran, a slow and painful death to match his family’s agony.’
Only Marcus and Balodi heard the first spear’s muttered command, and the tribal leader staggered on legs suddenly gone weak as Marcus lifted him by the collar of his rough tunic and pushed him forward into the ring of men. Albinus gestured to the Sarmatae chieftain with a look of scorn.
‘Let this serve as an example to you, Purta, of the treatment you can expect if you make the mistake of repaying Rome’s generous lenience in this matter with anything other than the greatest respect. Centurion?’
Marcus put a boot into the back of Balodi’s knees and forced him to the ground in a kneeling position. Reaching into a pouch on his belt he pulled out a small object wrapped in rags, carefully allowing the protective cloth to fall away and reveal what it was he held. Albinus was speaking again, pacing towards the kneeling king but aiming his words at an ashen-faced Purta.
‘This man not only bit the empire’s beneficent hand, in spite of the generous terms that he was offered to put an end to his tribe’s attempts at capturing the Ravenstone valley mines, he was also responsible for a crime against the Roman people. Having promised that he would ensure the release of the Roman citizens he held as slaves, he then forced them into the forefront of the attack on this place. You are both responsible for the deaths of innocent men, women and children who had a right to imperial protection, and it is in their name that we now punish him. Be grateful that I don’t have you share his fate, and be assured that if you ever attempt to rise against Rome in the future, the justice you are about to see delivered to this man will surely be visited upon you.’ His gaze swept the men standing around the king, their eyes fixed on Balodi as he knelt before them. ‘Upon all of you, and your families.’
Marcus held the small object he had taken from his pouch aloft and then put it under Balodi’s nose, nodding grimly as the helpless man pulled his head away from its pungent stench. Albinus smiled at the prisoner’s horrified expression, waving a dismissive hand at him.
&
nbsp; ‘I would have preferred to provide the shades of this man’s departed victims with the compensation of their murderer suffering a rather more protracted punishment. Scourging, crucifixion and eventual dismemberment are the empire’s prescribed means of executing men such as this, but I am persuaded that this alternative means of retribution is suitably fitting in this man’s case.’
He gestured to Marcus, who took out the veteran’s pendant and wiped it carefully down the blade of the poisoned arrowhead he had pulled from his shield weeks before, staining the metal with its yellow-green coating of poison. Jerking Balodi’s head back, he pushed the metal disc into his mouth and then wrapped a hand over the tribal leader’s lips to prevent him from spitting it out. Julius stepped forward and put his boot into Balodi’s stomach hard enough to double the Sarmatae over, and both men watched as he writhed with the pain of the kick. Staring up at the centurions, his eyes widened as he realised that the metal disc was no longer in his mouth, and Marcus nodded down at him with a look of grim satisfaction. Albinus walked across to the stricken nobleman, looking down impassively as Balodi’s eyes opened wide with the realisation of his doom.
‘My officers tell me that while even a small dose of this poison administered via a cut to the skin will kill a man quickly, ingestion is rumoured to be a good deal slower and more painful.’ Albinus turned back to Purta, whose face was now even whiter than before. ‘The victim, they tell me, soils himself. He struggles to breathe, and he is afflicted with severe pains in the stomach as the poison works on his organs. It will take Balodi hours to die, time during which he will be guarded by my men here in order to prevent any attempt to end his life in a more merciful manner. And if by some chance he manages to survive this dose of his own men’s poison, the process will simply be repeated. Let this be a warning to you all.’
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