The Burning Stone

by Jack Whyte

  Sure enough, Ludo came hammering up the road after him, and as he rounded the bend Cato leaned out and waved him towards the other side of the road, to where there was an even thicker tree.

  And then they drew steel and waited for their pursuers.

  Who did not come.

  Eventually Ludo stepped out of hiding and onto the road, where he stood looking at Cato. “They found the chests,” he said. “So they won’t be coming. Why should they? They’re alive, they found our gold, and we ran away. So now we have to go back. Shit!”

  Moving very slowly, Cato stepped back onto the surface of the road to join him, sliding the gladius into its sheath on his right hip, then using his left hand to steady the longer sheath of the spatha on his left side. Before he could slide the long blade home, however, they both heard the sharp, hard-pounding rhythm of iron-nailed boots running on the road below, approaching the bend, and they crouched as one, turning towards the sounds with their blades raised. There was only one person running down there, though, only one pair of boots. Moments later they could hear hard, heavy breathing and the footsteps slowed. Then there came a stumbling noise and the sound of a body falling, accompanied by a whuffing grunt and the unmistakable sound of a dropped sword clattering on cobblestones. That galvanized both of them and they went running, to find a single man lying face down in the middle of the road, the shaft of a short, heavy arrow sticking up from behind his right shoulder.

  “Shit,” said Ludo. “They’re here.”

  Cato was already down on one knee, feeling for a pulse in the wounded man’s neck.

  “Well, we have a prisoner,” he said slowly. “This one will live, and with any kind of luck we’ll be able to coax him to tell us who he is and what he and his crew were up to.”

  “I say leave the whoreson here to die and rot. We’ve got enough grief with these other four riding our arses. And here they come.” He turned away and spoke to the quartet now walking up the hill towards them, his voice reeking with disgust. “What took you people so long to get here?”

  The man leading the approaching quartet stopped. His companions stopped at the same time, staring up at Ludo and Cato in silence as their leader grimaced, pinching the corners of his mouth slowly and deliberately with his thumb and index finger before he spoke.

  “We were here ahead of you,” he said, “waiting for you. But you were absent on parade. We waited for three wagons and there were only two. And then when you finally did show up, you jumped down and ran away, leaving the gold for the thieves. We would have come looking for you sooner, but we didn’t know how far you might have run. And besides, I couldn’t get these idiots to stand up and stop laughing long enough to tell them where you disappeared to.”

  Cato stepped forward to stand beside Ludo, his mouth twisted into a wry half grin. “Blame my cowardice, Leon,” he said, and jabbed a thumb towards Ludo. “He told me I was being a weakling and my cowardice was showing, but I really thought they’d come after us for fear we might turn witness against them. We didn’t expect you to be here. As far as we knew, you were behind us. When did you pick us up? And how did you get ahead of us on this awful road?”

  Leon jerked his head backwards, indicating the trio behind him. “Thomas saw you from a field when you left the dirt road and turned onto the paved one behind the other two wagons. He was talking to a farmer, and wondered why the fellow was shaking his head as he watched the three of you head south. The old man gave him a tale about how the road was twisty and steep and how so many wagons and travellers had been robbed over the years on the straight stretch at the bottom of the last slope. Tom asked him the best way to get here on horseback, then came to get the rest of us. We swung east and rode down along the edge of the broken area, on decent ground. Got here about an hour ago and went into hiding. We were on the lookout, but this lot were really good. They were here before we arrived and we didn’t even know it until their scout came down the hill and they started moving. After that they went back into hiding, and we stayed where we were. When they came out, we moved against them.”

  “Hmm. What about the people on the other two wagons?”

  “All dead. Those lance throwers knew their trade.”

  “Knew? They’re dead?”

  Leon shrugged. “Aye. Tom and Dido took them out with their bows.”

  “Lances and bows…Long-distance warfare.” Cato nodded to the taciturn man called Stratus, who responded in kind, and then he looked at the Twins, Tom and Dido. “So, you two again,” he said. “Still haven’t drawn your blades?”

  The one called Dido grinned back at him. “I did. One of them was gut shot. His own fault. Saw me aiming at him and tried to jump aside, but jumped into the shot instead. He’d never have lived and wouldn’t have wanted to. So I finished him with my blade.”

  “Then you honoured him. He should have thanked you.”

  Dido looked surprised. “He did, when he saw I meant to. But how could you know that?”

  Cato dipped his head to the other Twin, Tom, who returned the salutation gravely. “That’s why I’m the magister, Dido. I know things like that. Come on now. We’d better get down there and make sure there’s no more ravens lurking around the wagons. You two carry our prisoner between you—and try not to kill him. We’ll carry your crossbows for you. If he lives, we’ll take him to Strabo in Isca. He’ll know what to do with him.”

  Retracing his steps downhill behind the others, Cato thought, for possibly the hundredth time since he had met them, that the Twins were remarkably well named, considering their origins. Their real names, Thomas and Didymus, both meant, literally, “the twin,” one in Greek and the other in Aramaic. But the two men, though they resembled each other so closely, were not even brothers. They had merely been paired together on joining the legions because of their marked resemblance to each other and they had remained together ever since, sharing most of their astonishing abilities, including their instinctive mastery of the rarely used crossbow, a miniature, hand-held adaptation of the great Roman artillery catapults used in siege warfare.

  “Looks like they never reached our chests,” Ludo said as they approached their abandoned wagon.

  “They didn’t,” Leon answered. “As he said, Dido shot one before he could climb aboard the wagon. The other saw him fall and kept on running, until Tom shot him just up the road.”

  Cato passed their wagon without stopping, though Tom and Dido paused to lower their unconscious prisoner to the ground beside it, and he continued walking until he reached the rearmost of the other two. He had counted six more bodies by then, tallying eight in all. Four of those were obviously the wagoners, for they were all unarmed and sprawled around the carts they had been riding in. The remaining two corpses, both wearing scuffed black leather military armour, were the lance throwers he had seen earlier. As he started to move again, though, he saw the arm of another man, draped over a fallen log that otherwise concealed him from view.

  “So,” he said, “how many of these animals were there?”

  “Five,” Leon told him. “That one behind the log seems to have been in charge. He’d been acting as spotter at the top of the hill, and when he came down, it was clear he was giving the orders.”

  “And what’s in the wagons? Did you check?”

  This time it was the taciturn Stratus who shook his head. “No,” he said, then placed a foot on the hub of the rear wheel of the wagon closest to him and sprang up effortlessly into the bed. The cargo lay covered with a heavy, waterproofed sheet of tar- or bitumen-covered leather. He seized one thick corner and wrested it aside, uncovering a layer of three long wooden cases banded with iron straps.

  “Shit,” Ludo said. “More gold?”

  Stratus scanned the floor around him, then stooped and picked up a long pry bar. He inserted it between the lid of the chest and its wall, then threw his weight on it, ripping the nails out until he could hook his fingers under the lid and wrench it open. He straightened up to look down into the chest.
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  “What is it, Strat?”

  Stratus crouched down again and reached into the chest. Then he braced himself and thrust himself up, straightening his legs with an enormous heave. He turned to let them all see what he had—he was clutching a large, rusted mass of solid metal—then swung away again and dropped it back into the chest, where it landed massively on top of others like it, shaking the whole wagon.

  “Loaf ingots,” Cato said quietly. “Big ones, too. Fifty pounds each, at least, maybe sixty. Solid iron. Probably worth its weight in gold to some people, Ludo, so you were almost right. How many in the crate, Stratus?”

  “Let’s see. Six in each layer…Twelve.”

  “And three crates? That’s thirty-six ingots. If the other wagon has the same load, this is a rich haul on its own.”

  Dido ran ahead to check the other wagon.

  “Headed for Isca, you think?” This was Leon again.

  “Where else? It’s a garrisoned fort. Garrisons need new weapons all the time. I think my friend Strabo might be glad to see this.”

  “Three crates in this one, too,” Dido shouted. “Seem to be the same size.”

  “So be it, then,” Cato said. “Let’s get moving. Tom, Dido, bring in the horses and tether them to the wagons, then take this one. Leon and Stratus, you take the other, and Ludo and I will keep the one we came in. We can’t be much more than ten miles from Isca, so we should get there before dark. Let’s just hope the rain doesn’t come back.”

  “I hope the hypocausts are working when we get there,” Leon drawled, flicking off a bead of water that had trickled down from his matted hair to the tip of his nose. “Otherwise I might never get warm again. A hot bath and a hard rubdown work wonders on a day like this, so let’s get there quickly.”

  “Let’s get there safely,” Cato said. “We don’t know this country, so we can’t afford to be careless, not this close to the end of the road. Besides, the hypocausts will be working. When did you ever hear of a garrison town without hot baths?” He looked around at all of them. “Right, then. Let’s move out. Ludo and I will take the lead from here on.”

  TWO

  Two hours later, when the rain returned, they were still on the road, in the middle of nowhere but on high, open ground on a fairly level surface. The rain, nowhere near as heavy as it had been earlier, was nonetheless heavy enough to soak them again and chill them to their bones, so that when Cato shouted the word back, just on the edge of nightfall, that he could see beacon lights in the distance, the entire group offered thanks to the gods.

  The town gates were closed by the time they reached them, but Cato had no intention of sleeping outside in the rain until morning, and had taken steps to ensure they would be admitted. On the approach to the town he’d climbed into the back of his covered wagon to towel himself dry and change quickly into his best uniform. He stayed there, out of the rain, until the wagons stopped in front of the gates, then blew a long, clear, sustained blast on the metal trumpet he kept among his general kit.

  Moments later he saw movement on top of the overhanging gate tower and jumped down from the wagon, throwing his cloak back over his shoulder to show not merely an elaborate officer’s cuirass but also, and unmistakably, the thin stripe of senatorial purple that bordered his tunic and defined him as a tribunus laticlavius, a high-born political functionary with powerful connections who was using the command structure of the imperial armies to enhance his own career. Without having to pause for effect, since he knew that everyone there knew instantly who and what he represented, he removed his ornate helmet with its distinctive bright green Legio VI Victrix crest and shouted up at the guards.

  “I am Marcus Licinius Cato, tribune of the Sixth Legion in Eboracum, here with imperial dispatches and supplies for your commanding legate. Open up.”

  Two bowmen stepped forward on either side of the tower and aimed their weapons down at him as shouts and the sounds of bustling activity broke out on the other side of the wall, where the guard was being reassembled hastily to reopen the enormous gates. When they did, Cato replaced his helmet and saluted the centurion who stepped out to greet him as officer of the day in command of the town guard, then handed over the pouch containing his credentials.

  The officer, clearly a long-serving garrison subaltern, checked Cato’s documents cursorily, raising one eyebrow as he recognized the seal on one particular piece, then returned them.

  “Welcome to Isca, Tribune,” he said. “If you’ll follow me, I’ll arrange an escort for you to the camp.”

  “I’ll be obliged to you, Commander. Please lead on.”

  He waited stoically, showing no signs of impatience as a junior officer, with the rank of decanus, was delegated to form an eight-man squad to escort his party through the town and to the main gates of the garrison headquarters, and he gritted his teeth in silence as he watched the hastily summoned unfortunates emerge confused from the guardhouse to form the detail. He was the latecomer, after all, arriving well after the appointed curfew, and any inconvenience was purely of his doing. These men had completed their shift and were entitled to their rest. They should not have been required to accommodate the whim of some unknown, arrogant bastard of a visiting officer who wanted to show how important he was. Finally, when the decurion in charge announced that his squad was fully prepared and ready to march, Cato thanked the officer of the day with a courteous nod and gave the signal for his wagons to fall into line behind their escort.

  The town was settling into its end-of-day routine. It was almost full night by now, and lights glowed in many of the households that lined the main streets, though those lights that beckoned from the taverns appeared to shine more brightly and to be more welcoming. The main route through the vicus, the town that had grown up around the original encampment, ran a haphazard course because that was how it had evolved over hundreds of years. Behind the camp walls where the garrison lived, everything was laid out in straight, rigid lines.

  The south wall of the legionary fortress of Legio II Augusta formed fully half of the northern end of the town, and their escort led them around in a half loop to approach the principal, eastern gates. The procedure of gaining entrance was repeated: the guard officer of the day, this time a young man barely out of boyhood, followed by a groom leading a cavalry mount, approached and saluted crisply. He welcomed Cato and his party formally to Isca Fortress on behalf of Legio II and its legate, then offered to escort them directly to the praesidium, the headquarters building.

  “I will be grateful, Commander,” Cato said, forestalling the young man as he was about to swing away to mount his horse. “But first we should attend to a formality.” He turned slightly to indicate the wagon behind him. “And not one, I think, that you would wish to take directly to the praesidium.”

  As the officer turned back, looking at him curiously, he continued. “We have a prisoner in our wagon—a thief, probably a deserter, captured in the act of robbing and murdering the four men who owned two of these three wagons. We caught him in the middle of it. Him and some others, but the others died there. He’s badly wounded and in need of medical attention. Can you take him off our hands?”

  “Of course, Tribune.” The young man turned to his lieutenant, an older man stamped with a senior ranker’s look of long, hard service. “Decanus, four of your men to carry the prisoner to the cells. Send another to summon the medical orderly on duty.”

  As the sergeant moved to obey, though, the watch commander changed his mind. “No, wait. Do it the other way around. Take him straight to the infirmary and hold him there under guard. If the medics release him, then they can take him to the cells. But keep track of what’s happening and report to me at end of shift.” He looked back at Cato. “Anything more, Tribune?”

  Cato shook his head, and the young officer said, “Right, we’ll go in now. This way, Tribune.”

  He turned smoothly and stepped up into the cupped hands of the waiting groom, who hoisted him easily up and onto the horse’s back a
s Cato swung himself up equally smoothly to the driver’s bench beside Ludo. As soon as he was seated, the horses leaned forward and pulled the wagon into motion.

  The young subaltern ignored them from then on as they did him, all of them knowing that there was no need for anyone to escort them, other than to satisfy the tokenism of official security. No one who was not a bona fide member of the local garrison was ever permitted to go anywhere unescorted within the confines of a Roman camp. It was a rule of such long standing and so universally acknowledged that it went without having to be said, by anyone. The fact that Cato was a visiting tribune of senatorial rank merely made it a matter of courtesy that he should be escorted by an officer rather than an enlisted man.

  Beyond the fortified passage inside the tower protecting the main gates, the Isca installation was laid out in a rectangle, with the exact precision of every other military establishment that had been built in the millennium since Rome’s expansion began. The main gates themselves faced east, as they had since Rome’s earliest days, and the central road, the Via Praetoria that bisected the camp, led directly westward from the gates to the praetorium itself. This building housed the unit commander, who might rank from a senior centurion to an imperial legate or even an imperial prefect or full consul, depending upon the size and importance of the garrison.

  In the original marching camps of the early legions—overnight, bare-ground accommodations furnished with leather tents and protected on all four sides by guarded earthen walls thrown up each day from the ditch the men dug to front them—the praetorium had been small but functional, the commander’s tent the largest in the enclosure and measuring no more than ten by twenty feet.