The Legions of the Mist

by The Legions of the Mist (retail) (epub)

  The necessity for major action was brought home forcibly a few nights later. Justin, grown restless while Gwytha was occupied with the baby, flung his cloak about him, looked at Finn asleep by the brazier, and went out alone for a walk.

  Wandering through the streets, he passed many of the legionaries from the fort, come into town to watch a cockfight or buy a pot of rubbing oil for sore muscles… and many just to cap off a day’s work with a night’s amusement. Down a side street, behind the glow of an open doorway, someone was singing, accompanied by the stamp of feet and the drumming of cups on the tabletop, and an occasional request to shut up and give the world some peace.

  Justin turned and headed in that direction. He had no other place in particular to go, and the noise was growing louder and more quarrelsome. He had the feeling there would be trouble in a minute. Perhaps the presence of an officer would put a damper on their spirits.

  When he reached the doorway, he saw the wineshop keeper, with a worried expression, refusing to serve anything more to a truculent-looking legionary in a torn tunic.

  ‘You’ve had enough. I know you, Junius, and you fight when you’re drunk. Go along now, before your yelling has the Watch in here.’

  ‘You used to march with the Eagles yourself, Varus,’ another man said. ‘Since when do you refuse a brother his right to a drink?’

  ‘Since he becomes too drunk to need any more,’ Justin said, coming in under the lintel.

  Junius turned around to stare at the newcomer. ‘Has the centurion any more sage advice?’

  ‘Just this. Take yourself back to barracks and soak your head to cool it off if you don’t want to be spending the night in the guardhouse.’

  ‘You heard the centurion,’ Varus said.

  ‘Aye, we heard him. It so happens that we don’t happen to agree.’

  ‘Drink while you can,’ someone shouted. ‘We’re going to be ordered out before spring, didn’t you know?’

  ‘As soon as we’ve mended the precious walls so the precious tribunes can wait it out in comfort!’

  ‘Then we’re off to teach the Pict a lesson. Only you can’t teach the Pict a lesson because he hasn’t any manners!’

  ‘He doesn’t know it’s not polite to attack a Roman!’

  This sally was greeted with shouts of laughter and someone grabbed a wineskin from the counter and began passing it around.

  ‘So we’ve got to go and show him that we’re gentlemen even if he isn’t, by fighting one to three!’

  ‘That will do!’ Justin snapped.

  ‘What’s going on here?’ Another centurion ducked into the wineshop beside Justin.

  ‘One of us to three of him! Don’t it stir your blood, sir?’ one of the legionaries laughed, trying to push Varus out of the way to get at the wine behind the counter.

  ‘Judge for yourself,’ Justin muttered to the man beside him. ‘There’ll be a brawl if this isn’t stopped.’

  ‘Here, you,’ Varus said, collaring the man and shoving him toward the door, ‘I told you to get out and I meant it!’

  One of the others jumped him, waving the wineskin happily over his head, and in a moment the whole shop was a shambles of overturned chairs and flying crockery.

  ‘Ah, would you now?’ Justin pulled the man off Varus and heaved him out the door, where he landed with a thud in the gutter and came charging back again. The other centurion fended him off, and Justin began trying to separate the others, who were indiscriminately hitting each other as well as the shopkeeper.

  The three of them had managed to dispose of several of the combatants, most of whom were too drunk to throw a punch with much accuracy, when someone picked out the tramp of boots coming down the alleyway.

  ‘The Watch!’

  There was a break in the scuffling as most of the participants dived for the door. They weren’t quite so drunk that they wanted to take on the whole force of the Watch who, having split up so as to come in by both the front and back ways, were waiting for them as they came out. There was a brief spate of shouting and curses as the officer in charge barked an order, but it was quickly silenced. The officer of the Watch came inside and grabbed a man who had been crouching beneath one of the tables by the collar of his tunic.

  ‘I’ll be taking him with me, if you don’t mind. Gods,’ he said, looking about him, ‘the place looks as if you’d taken an ax to it. You shouldn’t have let them drink so much, Varus.’

  ‘It wasn’t my idea,’ Varus said as the officer went out again, taking a considerably sobered legionary with him. After a moment, Justin could see their lanterns weaving back down the street, and the footsteps died out in the distance.

  The young centurion who had come in earlier turned to him. ‘Centurion Corvus, isn’t it?’ he said, holding a fold of his cloak against a cut cheek. ‘I’m Albinus. I’m to take the Fourth Cohort.’

  ‘Yes, I think I remember you.’ A number of replacement postings had arrived on the Nausicaä with the new Legate.

  ‘I heard the noise and thought it sounded like trouble.’

  ‘So did I, and it was. You had better get up to the surgery and get that cut seen to. If Licinius isn’t on duty, one of his men will be.’ Justin stayed a few minutes, helping Varus repair the worst of the damage, and then wandered out into the street again. It was growing late and Gwytha would be worried. On the way back he passed a shop which displayed oils and perfumes and, in one corner, a tray of toys in bronze and clay. One in particular caught his eye. It was a small figure of a dog, shaggy and long-legged, with its head raised in a comically expectant manner. It looked like Finn begging sticks to chase, and Justin asked the shopkeeper how much it was.

  ‘Fifty sesterces, sir. See the excellent modeling of the hair. A very fine piece of work which I bought only last week from a western bronzesmith.’

  ‘Yes, never mind, I’ll take it.’ Justin put the money on the counter.

  ‘Can I show the centurion anything else? Perfume for his lady?’

  ‘No, only the dog.’ He slipped the little figure into his tunic and turned back toward the house again, wrapping his woolen cloak about him. The night was growing colder, and flakes of snow were beginning to drift down around him, driven on an increasing wind. Metius Lupus was likely to have an exciting voyage home.

  He knocked at the main door of the house and immediately heard the bar slide back. Gwytha stood in the doorway with a lamp in her hand.

  ‘I was getting worried about you.’ She held the lamp closer to his face. ‘Where were you? And what in the Mother’s name were you doing while you were there? You’ve torn your tunic and there’s blood all over your hand.’

  ‘Brawling in a wineshop,’ Justin said shortly. ‘Don’t worry, it’s only partly mine. I was helping another centurion break up a tavern brawl and someone’s teeth got the worst of it. Poor man, he’d only just been posted here… he got a lovely welcome.’ He dropped down on the couch and reached inside his tunic. ‘I bought something. Ostensibly for small Justin.’

  ‘Oh, it looks just like him!’ Finn came up, sniffed his replica and snorted in disgust when it did not appear to be edible.

  ‘I got it from a perfume seller who deals in oddments on the side.’ He laughed. ‘I didn’t realize what a sight I looked. He must have thought I was mad.’

  There was another knock at the door, and Justin opened it to find Licinius standing grumpily in the snow, instrument case in hand.

  ‘I hear you’ve been trying to save the honor of Rome single-handed.’

  ‘If we hadn’t done something, they’d have demolished the place. They were in a foul mood.’

  ‘So I gathered from young Albinus. When he said you’d laid your knuckles open, I left him to Flavius… didn’t figure you’d have the brains to know you should have it seen to.’

  ‘They’re just grazed.’

  ‘On someone’s teeth?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It may interest you to know,’ Licinius said, unpacking a clean cloth and
a jar of salve, ‘that a human bite is far more dangerous than a sword cut. If that gets infected, you’ll regret it.’

  ‘Very well.’ Justin held out his hand obediently.

  ‘Are you off duty tonight?’

  ‘Yes, but I expect the Legate will want me in the morning. There’re upwards of ten men in the guardhouse for that escapade, and fighting with an officer is a serious matter, the other problem aside.’

  ‘I don’t imagine Varus was exactly amused either,’ Licinius said, applying salve.

  * * *

  Aurelius Rufus, newly appointed Legate of the Ninth, was even less pleased. As Justin entered, he looked up from a stack of papyrus rolls he had been inspecting. His helmet, with its crest of eagle feathers, lay beside him on the desk.

  ‘Ah, Centurion Corvus. I understand you were involved in that… uh, altercation at the Blue Swan last night.’

  ‘Yes, sir, I was.’

  ‘How did you happen to be there?’

  ‘It sounded like trouble brewing, and I thought if an officer were there they might behave themselves.’

  ‘Apparently you were wrong.’

  ‘I’m afraid so. I think it was beyond stopping at that point.’

  ‘Well, you seem to have made a good try at any rate, you and Albinus. There was, I believe, some rather undesirable talk as well, which Albinus only heard the tail of. Would you care to explain that?’

  ‘There wasn’t much. Only some wild remarks about fighting three to one. Nothing you could put your finger on, just a feeling that wasn’t good.’

  ‘Ah, yes, that makes it difficult. All the same, I think we’ll give those men a little harsher punishment than usual, in the hope they’ll remember to hold their tongues in the future. As it happens –’ Rufus stared dreamily out the window, as if the matter were of little importance to him – ‘I’ve heard something of the same already… concerning some of my officers. Would you know anything about that?’

  ‘Only that there has been talk all over about being undermanned, and the discipline has been let slip.’

  ‘That much I could tell. I think I will be able to get us some reinforcements, but that alone is not going to solve the problem.’ He turned to look at Justin. ‘I’m tired of moving around the edge of this, like a cat at a puddle. So – young Albinus is new to the Legion and has had no time to get mixed up in treason. Of you I know little except that you have a British wife, had a skirmish with Vortrix and let him get away, are accounted hot-tempered… and also that your cohort is in better shape than most. In short, I find you an enigma, Centurion.’

  ‘And if I were to say that I have had no hand in treason, but that Metius Lupus has let things slide so far that I have trouble stopping it even in my own cohort?’

  The Legate’s gaze traveled speculatively over Justin’s face and came to rest on his eyes.

  Justin found himself getting irritated. ‘The Legate may believe me or not, as he pleases.’

  ‘Do you know, I rather think I do, all other evidence considered.’ He picked up his helmet and studied the crest of it. ‘Sit down, Centurion Corvus,’ he said after a moment. ‘Now that we have settled that matter, there are a few other things I would ask you.’

  Justin pulled a stool over obediently and sat.

  ‘This talk that goes on, this smell in the wind, this feeling of yours – of what precisely does it consist?’

  ‘I’m not sure I can be certain, sir. As far as I can tell, they complain, as I said, of being undermanned, and left to rot here by Rome. The talk is mainly that we would do better to let the Brigantes have the land if they want it so badly, rather than fight at those odds. And I think the odds are by way of being an excuse. I think it’s probably rather than fight at all.’

  ‘An unattractive lot, the Ninth Hispana, but then I’m new to it. Where did you hear this?’

  ‘From a lot of loose talk, and some conversations not meant for my ears I imagine. Some of them, I regret to say, among my own men. And, I’m afraid, an officer or two.’

  ‘Yes, well, I think I have a fair idea who they are. I suppose the fools think to sit in our fortress and let the Britons come to us, and the north look out for itself.’

  ‘I rather think so, sir, yes.’

  ‘In Typhon’s name, don’t they know that if the Luguvallium-Segedunum line goes, we go, and if we go, so does the whole province? See,’ he pulled a map from the record chest behind him. ‘Here we are, and there is Deva, and Isca Silurum. The Brigantes are here, and here and here.’ He swept his hand northward from Eburacum across the whole width of the map. ‘The Twentieth Valeria Victrix are at Deva to the west, and the Second Augusta at Isca to the southwest. Without us, the Brigantes would have a clean path all the way to the southeast, if they wanted it. And then the Picts are here and here and anywhere else you care to name, probably including under the table. And they’d like nothing better than to shove us right out of Britain. Already they have driven us nearly out of Valentia.’

  He sat rubbing the small rough place beneath his chin where his helmet strap had left a callus. A career soldier, this Legate, with long years behind him in the Eagles. ‘To my mind, Centurion, the Pict is a greater danger than any. He has learned to bide his time.’

  ‘Will we have the men to stop him, sir?’

  ‘We can slow him down at any rate. But it will mean leaving Eburacum with nothing but a skeleton garrison to hold it. That garrison will have to be one I can rely on. And that means a flogging for the man who makes me think I can’t. I am desperate enough that I would even resort to decimation if I thought it would make the remainder more trustworthy than the whole.’

  Justin shuddered in spite of himself. Decimation was the harshest punishment that could be meted out to an army… the death of one man in every ten, called out from the ranks in front of his brothers.

  His reaction did not escape the Legate. ‘I fear it would not serve our purpose,’ he said, ‘but it would be as well if the camp remembered the possibilities. Now, Centurion, I want some more precise information.’

  ‘Very well, then. When you get those reinforcements, change over the garrison at Trimontium.’

  ‘Indeed? You paint an unpleasant picture, Centurion.’

  ‘I—’ Justin broke off as the Optio appeared in the doorway, ashen-faced.

  ‘What is it?’ the Legate snapped.

  ‘There’s been another stabbing, sir… Centurion Martius. He’s dead,’

  XIV

  The Hand on the Knife

  Aurelius rufus took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. ‘How long ago?’

  ‘Not more than five minutes, sir. Licinius is with him, but Martius was dead by the time he got there. Licinius says the knife likely killed him right off.’

  The Legate looked at Justin. ‘Well, Centurion Corvus, at least we know you didn’t do it,’ he said grimly. ‘That’s a blessing.’

  ‘We have the man that did, sir,’ the Optio said. ‘One of his own.’

  ‘Poor fool,’ the Legate said softly, and Justin wasn’t sure whether he referred to the murderer or the murdered. He rose and picked up his helmet. ‘Come along, Centurion Corvus, I want you.’

  Martius lay in the shadow of the drill hall, his scarlet uniform cloak spread over him like a pall of blood. Licinius was scrubbing his hands with a fistful of snow that fell in pink splotches at his feet. A silent circle of legionaries stood waiting for the Legate… grim-faced men of Martius’s cohort, and Favonius with his face twisted in grief. A ploughed-up path through the new snow showed where a man had been half dragged, half carried to the guardhouse. The circle opened as the Legate approached, with Justin and the Optio behind him. They stood, shifting and wary-eyed, while Aurelius Rufus looked down at the still form beneath the cloak.

  Finally he spoke. ‘Where is the man that has done this?’

  ‘In the guardhouse, sir,’ one of the junior centurions spoke up.

  ‘Very well. He will be executed in the morning, after he has had time to
make a better peace with himself than he gave his commander. Who saw what happened?’

  ‘It happened so fast, sir,’ the young centurion said. ‘There was a mix-up in the drill, and Centurion Martius stopped us as we came out of the hall and said to go back and do it again. Then Tullius yelled something at him and the commander gave him a month’s “on report.” Then he turned to go and Tullius jumped him. It was over in a second.’

  ‘And Tullius?’

  ‘He just stood there, as if he didn’t know where he was. He kept talking about Pertinax. He was the one who tried to knife Centurion Galen and got killed. I think he thought he was getting the man who killed his friend. Galen was riding Pertinax pretty hard when it happened, and I think Tullius blamed him for it… he’s been strange ever since.’

  The Legate looked him in the eye. ‘This cohort is a danger to itself and to the Legion. I would break it if I could spare the men.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Failing that, it is my opinion that it should not go leaderless for even a day. Therefore, I am assigning Centurion Corvus to the Sixth, as of right now. Centurion, who is your second?’

  ‘Lepidus, sir. A good officer.’

  ‘Very well, Centurion Lepidus will command the Eighth until a replacement can be posted. Centurion Corvus, Tullius is to be executed tomorrow morning. As for the rest of them, deal with them as you see fit, but get this cohort in shape if you have to flog every man in it.’ He turned on his heel and marched toward the Principia.

  Justin, equally grim-faced, surveyed his new command. ‘Very well, take your commander to the hospital and see that his body is properly cared for. I want it done by men of his cohort. After that, I want every man in it on parade. I will arrange an exchange for any who are assigned duty today, but I want every man there, including any on sick parade who are well enough to move. Is that clear?’