Altar of Blood

10

‘Of course there was a time when the plan was for all of this to be part of the empire.’ Dubnus looked at Tiro in disbelief, and the older man laughed at his expression. ‘I know, it seems far-fetched, and it’s not something that is discussed very much any more, but it was the Emperor Augustus’s intention to incorporate all this into a new province. Magna Germania! Just another stage in the relentless conquest of the world, as he saw it, and a prudent step forward to prevent the barbarians from harassing our lands west of the Rhenus. After all, we’d dealt with the Gauls easily enough, and subdued those areas east of the Rhenus which could be reached by river.’ He waved a hand at the wooded hills through which they were riding. ‘This was in the days when the empire was young, of course, and nobody really knew quite how it actually works. These days we understand much better how difficult it is to truly conquer a people who don’t live in towns, and who can’t have their way of civilised life changed to match ours.’

The Briton nodded thoughtfully.

‘This is an interesting point. The people of my province live in towns in the south, but in the north, where we patrol the wall that was built by Hadrian, the tribes continue to resist, and in the mountains they cannot be beaten.’

The older man nodded knowingly.

‘Towns are of course easier to control. Their inhabitants are concentrated, easy to influence and easily punished if they fail to obey their new masters.’ He paused for emphasis. ‘Vulnerable. A careful mixture of stick and carrot, the building of baths and arenas when the population behave, and beheadings when they don’t, soon brings most people into line with our way of thinking. We match our gods up with theirs, encourage worship of each pair of deities together, and within a generation or two it is as if there was never any alternative way of living. But the peoples who live across the land this side of the river, that’s a different matter. They’re hard to reach in any numbers without using more legions than the land they populate can support, they fight like wildcats, deny our military strength by running away from it and are only too happy to put a dagger into our backs when we’re least prepared. Why the divine Augustus ever thought we might subjugate them, or why it would be worth the effort, is still a puzzle to the people that care about those sorts of things.’

‘Hubris.’

The imperial agent grinned at Dubnus.

‘Well now, Briton, there’s a word I wouldn’t have expected from a provincial auxiliary, centurion or not.’

The big man shrugged.

‘It’s true that I do indeed come from just such a hill tribe, but my father the king was careful to see me educated, and it’s hard to rub shoulders with the likes of Tribune Scaurus and my friend Marcus without some of their polish rubbing off on my rough barbarian manners.’

Tiro flinched theatrically with a self-deprecating smile.

‘Ouch. And so perish all men who underestimate you, I suspect. And yes, hubris is certainly one word for it. Perhaps blind ambition is the simplest explanation. Certainly the imperial family seem to have been of the impression that they had some divine right to conquer everything between the Rhenus and the Albis. First it was Augustus’s stepson Drusus who led the charge, defeating all manner of tribes across these lands before he was careless enough to fall off his horse and then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, unfortunate enough to die as a consequence. Then his older brother Tiberius took over and did a good deal more of the same, easy enough to understand since they were cut from the same stone, so to speak, and all seemed assured until Augustus made the mistake of confirming your friend Gaius Vibius Varus’s distant ancestor as commander of the army that was to complete the conquest of the planned province. Varus was an administrator and not a fighting general, although he does seem to have been an expert in the darker arts of suppressing an urban population in the way we discussed earlier. According to the histories he had two thousand men crucified in Judea to head off a rebellion before it could get properly started, so he wasn’t exactly restrained in his use of the stick. And it seems he took that stick to the “pacified” German tribes with a vengeance, and they paid him back by allying with the traitor Arminius, and luring Varus and his three legions into a colossal ambush.’

‘They were all killed?’

‘Not at first. But they were broken by the initial onslaught, more or less, and then hunted and harried south over the mountain range and through the swamps that stood between them and safety. A handful of them reached the fortress at Aliso, but that was overrun in its turn soon after, and any plans to consolidate our grip of a pacified “Greater Germania” were at an end. There were punitive expeditions, of course, and the dead of the three legions were collected and buried, but the locals dug them up again as soon as the armies that had been sent in to take revenge were gone, and it all ended up with Tiberius making the very sensible decision to leave the Germans to stew in their own juice. You see …’

He lowered his voice to prevent their escort from overhearing him.

‘It’s really very simple. First we side with one tribe, and give them an incentive to attack their neighbours, and then we side with another and persuade them to attack the first. Keeping the Germans at each other’s throats is the most effective way we can prevent them from ganging together and trying to cross the Rhenus, which means that we’ve had to get rather good at fomenting disputes between them.’

Dubnus looked at him for a moment.

‘And there’s a man like you somewhere in Britannia right now doing just the same thing?’

Tiro nodded with pursed lips.

‘Yes. That’s exactly the way it is. And it’s not going to change any time soon.’

‘We must be gaining on them!’

Gernot grinned at the king, having spurred his horse up alongside Amalric’s mount, then stared out down the arrow-straight path that stretched to the horizon.

‘Surely, my King! It can only be a matter of hours before we overhaul them, and then our rev-’

The scream of a horse behind them had both men twisting in their saddles in surprise, reining their mounts in to survey a scene of chaos. One of the men following behind them had been violently dismounted, and was lying prone in the thin layer of water that covered the track’s wooden surface, his horse thrashing and bucking in apparent agony. Half a dozen of the riders following behind had been forced to ride off the path into the deeper water that lay on either side, and were struggling to persuade their spooked mounts to back up and regain the comparative safety of the wooden surface, while those further back had pulled up and waited helplessly, their way forward entirely blocked by the confusion.

Gernot slid down from his horse and strode back towards the apparently injured beast, eyeing its continued convulsions for a moment before coming to a decision, pointing at the fallen rider whose head was lolling at an unnatural angle.

‘Get him out of the way!’

A pair of warriors edged forward and took hold of the fallen rider’s clothing, dragging him clear of the injured horse, and the noble drew his sword, raising it in readiness to strike and waiting patiently for the right moment. The animal’s struggles against the pain of whatever had caused it to stumble gradually calmed, and finally, shivering violently, it stood still with one hoof raised from the track’s wooden surface. Pulling the sword back until it was almost behind him the noble struck, hacking a fearsome gash into the stricken horse’s neck and stepping back as it staggered, blood gushing from the wound, sinking to its knees as consciousness faded from its brain.

‘Quickly, get it off the track before it collapses!’

A dozen men rushed to join him, and their collective push toppled the trembling animal over the path’s edge and into the knee-deep marsh water, where it lay twitching in an expanding cloud of its blood. Gernot leaned over to examine the foot that it had been favouring, reaching out and pulling at a hard metal object embedded in the centre of the hoof’s underside. Turning, he held it up to Amalric with the bloodiest of its four points uppermost.

‘A caltrop. It seems that our quarry isn’t ready to be overtaken that easily after all.’

The king looked down at the pointed device in disbelief for a moment, then shook his head.

‘No matter. One horse makes no difference either way, so nothing is changed.’

Gernot flicked a glance at his men, many of whom were eyeing the corpse of the dead horse’s rider with evident dismay. He walked across to the king’s horse, craning his neck to look into Amalric’s eyes.

‘You’re sure, my King? There will be more traps like this. More men will die.’

The younger man looked down at him for a moment, then took the caltrop from his fingers, holding it up in plain view of the men of his household.

‘Gernot warns me that there will be more of these. Look upon it, my brothers, and consider its nature as a weapon. Invisible until it strikes, murderous to man and horse, and easier to make than an arrowhead. If we ride on from this point it is likely that some of you will have your horses felled by these, assuming that our enemy has more of them. And so I ask you to choose whether you wish to ride on, or whether you will take the easier option, and turn your horses south, admitting defeat.’

He was silent for a moment, allowing time for his men to digest the awful choice.

‘For myself there is no choice, but for each of you all that binds you to me are a few words that you spoke before the altar of Wodanaz when my father died, and I succeeded him on the tribe’s throne.’

‘A vow is a vow, my King!’

Amalric nodded, raising a hand in recognition of the outraged shout from somewhere near the back of his men.

‘Trust me, my brothers, I have vowed to have these Romans’ heads nailed to my roof beams, or else to die trying. And so I will be riding at the head of our column from now, taking as much risk as any other man. Who will ride with me? I will say again, any man who wishes may be released from his oath without fear of censure or punishment. Service of this nature must be given freely or not at all! Who will ride with me?’

A roar from his men and a thicket of spear heads punching at the air was his answer, and Amalric looked down at Gernot with a sad smile.

‘I’ve just condemned who knows how many of them to die and they love me for it.’ He tossed the caltrop into the water at the track’s side. ‘Have the dead man’s body placed at the path side and we’ll bury him with dignity when we return with the heads of the bastards who killed him. And then take your saddle, Gernot, we have Romans to hunt!’

‘He’s waking up. Let’s try to get him upright.’

The Tungrians had been a dozen miles north of Aliso when disaster struck. Husam, riding near the head of the column, felt his horse stumble momentarily and then, just as he had thought the beast had regained its footing, found himself momentarily in the air before hitting the edge of the wooden causeway with a sickening crack. On coming to he had found several worried men gathered over him, their expressions becoming still darker with his frenzied reaction to their attempts to lift him.

‘No! In the name of the goddess no!’

Two of the men standing over him were pushed aside, making way for the woman Gerhild who squatted next to him and ran her hands along the length of his twisted leg. She looked up at Scaurus and made to stand up, but Husam whipped out a hand and gripped her arm with the wide-eyed strength of a man in severe pain.

‘Tell me.’

She looked down at him until his grip loosened.

‘Your leg is broken. You cannot ride and you cannot walk.’

He digested her statement in silence for a moment, then looked up at Scaurus, speaking with teeth gritted against the pain in his thigh.

‘You must leave me, Tribune, or I will be the death of you all. I ask only that you stand me up and put a bow in my hand, and I will send a dozen of these Bructeri to the underworld before me.’

The tribune nodded.

‘As you wish. But given that we have no time to spare I warn you that it will be painful in the extreme.’

Cotta squatted down next to him, taking one hand and holding out a piece of wood taken from his pack.

‘Put this in your mouth and bite down.’

The Hamian opened his mouth and allowed the wooden dowel to settle against his back teeth, then nodded curtly. Pulling him to his feet as gently as they could, the men around him winced as he shrieked with the pain as the ends of his broken thigh bone grated together. Scaurus looked into the Hamian’s eyes and nodded to himself.

‘Hold him up. Arminius, fetch the vial.’

The big German nodded and turned away to his pack, returning with a small and solidly made green glass bottle whose stopper was sealed over with a heavy blob of wax and then wired for good measure. He raised a questioning eyebrow to his master, who nodded tiredly.

‘Open it. If we don’t use it now then we may never get the chance to do so.’

Stripping away wire and wax, Arminius pulled the stopper with delicate care, putting his nose to the bottle’s neck.

‘It smells sweet enough.’

Scaurus laughed.

‘It tastes sweet enough too, especially once the contents have had time to take effect. Take a mouthful.’

The Hamian drank, licking at the residue that stuck to his lips.

‘It tastes like honey.’

‘It is honey mixed with wine, but with the addition of the milk of the poppy. I have given you sufficient to dull the pain, but not enough to completely remove it, as that would cause you to sleep. Now, we need to get you tied to something so that you can stay upright for long enough to make your arrows count.’

Cotta pointed to a sapling growing alongside the track.

‘There? He’ll have a clear view of the track.’

Scaurus nodded.

‘Fetch rope. Husam, what is the distance of your best bow shot?’

The Hamian thought for a moment, lifting his head to look at the nearby trees for some indication of wind direction.

‘Two hundred paces.’

Scaurus called after Cotta.

‘And have the remaining caltrops laid out from two hundred paces back down the track.’

Biting down on the wooden stick again, the Hamian grimaced and shuddered while they manhandled him over to the young tree, then lashed his injured leg to its bole to enable him to stand upright on his remaining good limb.

‘There. That should keep you standing long enough to put a few shafts into the air. Here, give me that stick.’ Cotta extracted the wooden dowel from his mouth and then tossed it aside. ‘Munir, come over here and sort your comrade out with his bow. And be quick about it, we need to be away.’

Scaurus stepped forward and took the stricken archer’s hand, looking into his eyes with an expression of sadness verging on tears, and Husam laughed tersely, flinching at the pain in his leg.

‘You can stop that.’ Scaurus raised an eyebrow, but the archer shook his head dismissively. ‘You heard me, Tribune. No sadness, not now. I’m going to die cleanly, and quickly, instead of suffering for hours and then dying from the barbarous attentions of the Bructeri. I always knew that following your eagle would get me killed at some point, and all I ever wanted was for it to be a man’s death, fitting for the service of the Deasura. So ride away now, before the Germans get here, and think of the harvest I’ll reap from them as they come up that road. Now …’

He turned to Munir, who was waiting behind the officer.

‘Give me my bow.’ He took the weapon from the empty-eyed watch officer, hastily restrung with a dry string to replace its predecessor, which had been soaked by its fall into the marsh, and tested its draw with a critical expression. ‘Perfect. Give me some arrows and I’ll be ready.’

‘I’m staying with you.’

Husam laughed.

‘No you’re not, my friend, because not only does the tribune have too much sense to let you throw your life away that cheaply, but I’m not letting you either. I’m your superior, and I’m telling you to give me some arrows, two quivers full, then get on your horse and get out of here.’ Munir stared at him with eyes that were filling with tears. ‘And you can stop that too, because I’m giving you a job to do that’ll be a good deal harder than just standing here and putting some arrows into a hapless bunch of barbarians, right? At some point in the next day or two you may get a chance to put a shaft into Qadir, and when you get that chance you must send the arrow on its way with the Deasura’s name on your lips in the hope that she will greet him into the afterlife despite his increasing lack of regard for her. Give him a merciful death, Munir, and when the time comes remember me and do not hesitate! Now be on your way, and leave me to commune with the goddess.’

His friend put a quiver of arrows over each of the Hamian’s shoulders, making small adjustments to their positioning until the feathered shafts fell perfectly to hand, then kissed him on both cheeks and was gone, splashing across the submerged timbers to join the waiting horsemen. Husam saluted, lifting his bow in a gesture of defiance against the fates, and held it there while he watched them trot away to the north in showers of spray, as their horses’ hoofs scattered the standing water in all directions. Lowering the bow he stared at it in bleak silence for a moment and then exhaled in a long, slow breath.

‘Let us make ready.’

Licking a finger, he held it up to gauge the wind’s strength and direction, smiling as he realised that it was at his back, a gentle breeze that would nonetheless help his shots achieve their best possible distance. Expertly plucking an arrow from the quiver, he put it to the weapon’s string, lifting the bow to its optimum elevation. Drawing the string back to its maximum extent, forcing the power of his broad shoulders into the weapon, he loosed the arrow and watched intently as it first climbed to the height of its brief arc and then fell back to earth to impact the wooden track in a brief splash of water almost too distant to be visible, the white flight feathers no more than a dot in the landscape before him but nevertheless sufficient to give him an indication of the range at which he could begin to punish the oncoming horsemen. Relaxing for a moment he closed his eyes, imagining the carved statues of Atargatis, the goddess that the Hamians called the Deasura, the deity worshipped by every man serving under Qadir’s command.

‘Deasura, light of my life, I am about to undertake my last feat of arms, crippled and in agony, but still capable of putting the fear of your vengeance into the hearts of the unbelievers. Grant me the strength to wield my bow with the skill of my long practice, and the grace to accept my death when that time comes. Make my ending glorious, I humbly pray, and grant me the boon of a quick and honourable exit from this life. Do not allow your faithful servant to suffer the indignity of torture or mutilation, but rather allow me to enter the underworld entire and ready to serve you in whatever is to follow.’

He stood in silence for a moment longer and then spoke again, this time with less certainty and in something close to a pleading note.

‘So much for my pleas for your favour. Now I must plead on the behalf of another man, my friend Qadir. I know that of late he has been less … attentive to your service than before. This is not from any lack of love and respect for you, but because he has seen and done many things that a man should perhaps not have to endure in the past few years. I know that he has become troubled by the taking of life, and I fear that he has become weary of this world. Please, I entreat you, provide him with the strength to master this weakness and return to his full powers as both a man and a soldier. I know that he will love you for it, and redouble his efforts to serve you as you demand and deserve.’

He opened his eyes, looking down the track’s length and finding it still empty.

‘It seems that I will have something of a wait before the time for my glorious death is at hand.’ Closing his eyes, he pondered for a moment before speaking again. ‘Forgive me, Deasura, for troubling you one last time. I speak on the behalf of a man for whom I have much fondness, an unbeliever, it is true, but a good-hearted man none the less, and another who has undergone more than his share of fate’s insults and injuries. If you see fit, visit your bounteous favour on Centurion Aquila, and grant him some measure of peace from the furies that haunt him. I know that your favour would help him to return to his former self.’

He fell silent and opened his eyes, looking up into the empty sky.

‘Enough. A man should greet his death with more dignity than to beg for assistance, even for a friend.’

Reaching down to the quiver with fingers that needed no instruction, he strung another arrow, tipping his head from side to side and back to front to warm the muscles that he needed to work perfectly one last time, stretching out his right arm and waggling the fingers in preparation for the feats of dexterity that would shortly be demanded of them, then looked down the track to see a minute speck of darkness on the horizon.

‘Well it’s about time. Come on then, you unenlightened barbarian scum. I’m ready when you are.’

Amalric rode in silence, brooding on the three horses that had fallen to caltrops since their initial loss. Two of the riders had emerged from their falls with nothing worse than minor injuries, but the third had broken his arm on hitting the track’s wooden beams, and had been left propped against a tree with the promise that he would be picked up on their return southward. All three animals had been put out of their agony by Gernot, but each fresh casualty had consumed enough time for their quarry to have re-established a good half-mile or so of the lead that he was attempting to haul in by means of his calculated gamble with their pace. With each of the first two losses Gernot had urged him to surrender his place at the head of the column to a man whose loss would be less keenly felt, and each time he had dismissed the idea out of hand, so that at the third stop the noble had not raised the idea, but simply fixed his king with a lingering, piercing stare that spoke eloquently as to his concerns.

Staring intently down the track he almost missed the small fleck of white feathers as he rode past it, registering it out of the corner of his eye as it vanished beneath the hoofs of the leading riders. Just as he realised what it was that he had seen, a high-pitched scream of equine pain sounded from behind him.

‘This is the place your father named in his message to the king of the Angrivarii?’

Sigimund’s oldest son grunted, nodding dourly.

‘He told them we would be here by the middle of the day.’

Tiro looked about him, finding only an empty landscape above which clouds scudded slowly past.

‘Well if they’re here they’re doing a remarkable job of staying concealed.’ He turned to Varus and Dubnus with a raised eyebrow. ‘It seems my message to the Angrivarii has gone astray, but one of the main tenets of the men I work for is to get the job done, no matter what the circumstances throw in our way. Doubtless the man sent to deliver my request for safe passage to the locals is lying at the bottom of some ditch or other with a broken neck, with the message still tucked away about his person. So, we have a choice, gentlemen, to wait here until the Angrivarii do arrive, which of course might be a very long wait, or just to continue on our way without their assistance. Or their permission …’

Dubnus nodded slowly.

‘And if they find us on their land without having granted that permission?’

The older man pulled a wry face.

‘That depends on who does the finding. The tribe are still nominally our friends, but the discovery of Romans on their land unbidden might well result in our deaths before any sort of agreement could be reached.’

‘And the same can be said of the tribune and his party?’

‘Doubly so, for they have the Bructeri witch with them. My entire plan depended on our being able to recruit the Angrivarii to our cause, but without their co-operation there are several ways this can go bad.’

The Briton turned in his saddle to look at Varus.

‘It seems to me that our only real option is to press on, find our brothers and bring them back here. Any other course of action seems likely to result in their capture and likely death.’

Tiro leaned back in his saddle, playing a hard stare on the centurion.

‘You’re more of a pragmatist than I’d expected, Prince of the Brigantes. Very well, since you’ve done my arguing for me, we’ll risk the wrath of the Angrivarii and ride for the place I told Dolfus to meet us. I assume that you gentlemen will wait here for us?’

Husam watched the oncoming horsemen intently, the arrow nocked to his bowstring drawn and ready to shoot, gauging the balance between the urge to shoot with the Bructeri inside his longest range and the need to make every arrow count. A horse screamed, and the arrow seemed to spring away from the bow’s string of its own volition, so swift was his reaction, aimed at the point in the enemy’s column where chaos had erupted. With the first missile in the air he continued shooting for all he was worth, lofting shaft after shaft at the oncoming pack of horsemen, a target so densely packed that he knew that putting an arrow into their midst was likely to result in a hit. A horse had fallen just behind the horsemen’s front rank, presumably to a carefully placed caltrop, and the ensuing chaos behind the fallen beast and those its fall had balked in turn was preventing most of the riders from either escaping from beneath the rain of arrows or attacking down the road. A rider whose horse had avoided the chaos put his head down and charged his mount forward, and Husam lowered his bow a little and put an arrow into the man’s mount, cursing as the shaft struck deep into the beast’s chest rather than hitting the man in its saddle. Killed in mid-gallop the horse simply ploughed into the track’s shallow standing water, its rider managing to stay in the saddle long enough that when the beast’s dead momentum was almost spent he was able to step off his mount and take shelter behind its massive bulk, safe from the Hamian’s arrows.

The screams of wounded animals and their riders reached him, distant sounds of distress as his shafts hit targets that were so tightly grouped as to be unmissable. The Germans’ forward momentum was clearly lost, fallen horses preventing the men behind from pressing through to get at the source of the arrows that were falling on them with terrible, brutal efficiency and burying their evil iron heads indiscriminately in man and beast alike. He paused for a moment to look down at his first quiver, tallying the number of shafts remaining, realising that a voice was shouting above the chaos of the trapped horsemen and their mounts, urgent, imperative commands that could only presage one action from the trapped Germans.

A handful of men had managed to fight their way through the milling chaos of the horsemen bottled up behind the fallen beasts, two of them dropping into the shelter of the king’s dead horse twenty paces closer to the enemy archer than the main cluster of horsemen who were still suffering under his shafts, while the others fell flat in the marsh’s fetid water to their right in order to avoid drawing the bowman’s attention. The bigger of the two was a senior warrior within the royal household, a heavy bearded bear of a man whose greatest prize was a mail shirt he had taken from a Roman captive years before, and which he wore over a coat of thick hide so stiff as to itself resemble armour. He peeped over the horse’s ribcage at the ground before them, and Amalric followed his gaze, his spirits sinking as the distance across which the archer was shooting struck home. The big man looked at him with a determined set of his jaw, knuckles white on the shaft of his spear.

‘We must attack, my King!’ Amalric nodded grimly, readying himself to join them in storming the lone archer, only to find a hand on his sleeve. ‘Not you, Amalric. Your place is to lead our brothers and recover what has been stolen from us. Most of us who run at this man will die, but we give our lives for the good of the tribe. Praise our names, when the time comes for the songs to be sung of this day.’

Raising his voice the warrior bellowed at the men waiting in the swamp’s water.

‘Our king commands us to kill this archer! Are you ready to give your lives for the tribe?’

Their response was swift, if a little muted by the circumstances, a growled affirmation, and with a war cry that stood the hairs on the back of Amalric’s neck the big man rose from cover, pointing at the lone archer and striding forward with his spear raised, then grunting in pain as an arrow struck him in the chest, staggering back with the force of the impact. After a moment’s pause the man beside him leapt to his feet and vaulted the horse’s body, joining the charge of the half-dozen men who had rallied to join the desperate attack. He took half a dozen swift strides forward, bellowing a war cry made ragged by exertion and fear, then stopped dead, sinking to his knees with an arrow’s feathered shaft protruding from his chest.

Half a dozen men rose from the cover of their fallen mounts at an unintelligible bellowed command, clearly intent on overrunning Husam’s position, and with a savage grin that was half-exultation and half the agony of making any movement with his shattered leg strapped to the tree, the Hamian put an arrow into the first man to get to his feet, switching his attention to the next of them and dropping him as he stormed forward from the shelter of the fallen horse. The first man he had shot was back on his feet with no obvious wound, the arrow having apparently failed to beat whatever armour was protecting him, but the next shaft knocked him down again, apparently putting him out of the fight. A group of warriors climbed from the swamp beside the track and ran at him screaming their battle cries, and the Hamian switched targets, missing with his next shaft, as the warrior he’d targeted unwittingly weaved out of its path, but the next two shots both struck home, leaving only a pair of warriors baying for his blood as they came on in weaving, splashing runs, intended to throw his aim off. Behind them the first man was back on his feet, and Husam frowned at the realisation that two arrows had failed to stop the oncoming Bructeri, who was using the two men in front of him as unwitting cover. He lowered the bow, waiting for the runners to get close enough that their evasive changes of direction would cease to be of any protection against the lethal velocity of his arrows.

At fifty paces, as he raised the weapon to start shooting again, one of the runners went down clutching at his bloody foot in shock and agony, as he stumbled onto another one of the caltrops that had been scattered in the Bructeri’s path. The Hamian shot the man who turned to look back at his maimed comrade for an instant, his pause all the opportunity the waiting archer needed. Nocking another arrow he drew it back as far as he could before releasing it at the sole remaining warrior, still stubbornly advancing despite having been struck twice, nodding his head as the shaft stuck in his target.

His small smile of satisfaction faded as the big German, having momentarily doubled up over the arrow’s impact point, slowly straightened his body again, looked down, then pulled the shaft free of whatever had prevented it from piercing his body, tossing it aside. Raising his spear he stood still for a moment, coughing and spitting into the water, then grinned bloody-mouthed at the archer before he began to stagger forward again, still hunched against the pain in his body where three heavy iron arrowheads had struck with the power of spear thrusts, but clearly determined to use whatever magic was repelling the Syrian’s arrows to close with his tormentor and put him down.

Waiting, partly exercising the patience that he had learned while hunting game in the German forests, partly through sheer curiosity, he watched with another arrow strung and ready to loose, shaking his head in amazement as the Bructeri mastered the crippling pain and walked towards him, his face contorted with the agony of his damaged body as he broke into a shambling run. At twenty-five paces distance he drew his spear arm back and, with an incoherent, pain-wracked bellow of rage in the face of Husam’s raised bow, hurled his framea with a final roar, stopping with his hands on his knees to cough blood again as the spear whipped across the space between them in a short arc that seemed fated to strike the archer. Leaning his upper body to one side with a suppressed shriek of pain, Husam felt the wind of the weapon’s passage on his face, then straightened his body with slow, agonised care, every movement sending spikes of red hot agony down his broken leg. He raised the bow, trembling with the pain, waiting as the big tribesman stood, staring back at him with blank eyes, nodded at the German in respect of his tenacity, and then shot him in the throat. He watched dispassionately as the tribesman sank to his knees and then fell face down into the track’s water, nodding again.

‘I’ll be along to join you soon enough.’

Looking up he saw a lone figure racing forward out of the mass of horsemen bottled up behind the fallen beast, diving into the cover of a dying horse just in time to evade the arrow intended to kill him.

Staring past the fallen Germans he realised that the remaining warriors had gone to ground, and if any further attack on his position was in hand it was not yet evident. Drawing breath he bellowed a challenge at the men cowering behind the bodies of their dead and dying mounts.

‘Are there no more of you with the guts to come and kill a cripple!’

Amalric stared bleakly at the bodies that littered the ground in front of him, then ducked below the flank of his horse, hearing the hiss of another arrow over his head, as Gernot dived into the cover beside him. In the silence that followed he could hear the distant archer shouting something in a language he didn’t understand, his voice thick with anger.

‘We have to get round him! That may be a single man, but this is a field of death! We have to get around him, there’s no way we can go straight through him without losing too many men!’

The noble shook his head at his king’s frustrated outburst.

‘Impossible, my King. The marshes here are almost impassable unless you know the paths that give safe passage.’

Amalric nodded wearily.

‘How many men have we lost?’

‘At least five men lie dead and wounded behind us, and twice as many horses. Fortunately the rest had the good sense to pull back, out of the range of his bow. And here?’

Amalric waved a hand at the corpses strewn across the causeway.

‘As you see, he killed six men of my household without any of them ever getting within touching distance of him. If we are to attack again, we will have to go forward with every man we have, and look to overwhelm him with numbers.’

The noble’s mouth tightened in anger, and he turned to look back to where the prisoner squatted at the side of the track under the points of two spears.

‘We would lose more men than we could afford, given the number already dead or wounded at his hand. No. I have a better idea. One that will see him out of our way without a single further death. Or perhaps just the one.’

‘So where is it that we’re heading?’

Tiro made another nervous scan of the horizon to their north and east before answering Dubnus’s question, guiding his horse towards the cover of a copse several hundred paces distant.

‘To a place I agreed with Dolfus would be our meeting place tomorrow. I chose it because it is rarely visited by the Angrivarii, who believe it to be haunted by the spirits of the legionaries who were killed as they fought their way across it, under constant attack by the men of five tribes led by the traitor Arminius.’

‘Traitor?’ The Briton frowned. ‘He was a German, wasn’t he?’

The older man shook his head.

‘Only by birth. He was taken hostage at an early age, ransomed to ensure his father the king’s support in the wars against the other tribes, which meant that he was given a Roman education and grew to manhood as a member of the civilised world. The emperor granted him equestrian status, and he proved himself to be an able leader of men. Too able, in fact. He performed well in the Pannonian war, and became so well trusted that the command hierarchy of the three legions campaigning on the eastern side of the Rhenus never for one moment considered him capable of betraying them. But he did, and twenty thousand men died as a consequence. Their bones are still scattered along the route they took to flee from the German attacks, for all the good it did them. Only a handful ever lived to see Aliso.’

Varus looked about him with a shiver.

‘And the Angrivarii were part of this alliance against Rome?’

Tiro nodded, nudging his horse on with a touch of his heels.

‘Both they and the Marsi were happy to take part, and even if they were whipped back into line by Tiberius and Germanicus they remain unpredictable and dangerous, which explains our somewhat ambivalent relationship with both them and most of the other tribes on this side of the river. I’m never sure whether they’ll greet us with a smile or a drawn dagger.’ He scanned the horizon again. ‘Or both.’

Husam raised his bow once more, as a figure stood up from the cover of one of the dead horses, freezing with the arrow ready to loose as his preternaturally sharp eyesight identified his target, and the white square of linen that was held across his chest. Shaking his head in disgust he eased the last few inches of draw from the shaft, muttering to himself as he watched more Germans rise from their hiding places.

‘I should have expected such a thing.’

Raising his voice to bellow a command, he lifted the bow to reinforce the threat behind his words.

‘No more than three of you, or I will start killing you, white flag or not.’

Climbing carefully over the horse’s corpse, Qadir walked slowly forward followed closely by three more men, each of them carrying a long spear ready to strike at the captive centurion. Walking steadily towards the crippled archer the centurion raised his voice to call out to his friend in Aramaic.

‘Shoot me now, Chosen Man, while you still have the opportunity!’

Husam lowered his head for a moment and then looked up again.

‘I know I should! I have ordered Munir to grant you that mercy, should he have the opportunity to send you to the arms of the goddess, but now that I have the chance I find my arm weak.’

One of the Germans walking behind Qadir barked out a command in Latin.

‘No more of your eastern gabbling! Speak Latin!’

Husam laughed out loud, the sound ringing out across the corpse-strewn marsh.

‘Fuck you, German. I have you under my bow, and given the slightest excuse I will put an arrow into the exceptionally small space between your balls! And that’s close enough!’

The German moved sideways slightly, making sure he kept Qadir between him and the Hamian’s bow.

‘I am Gernot, Lord of the Bructeri, and I come only to talk. Will you shoot a man who speaks under a flag of truce?’

Husam shifted his good leg, grimacing at the pain that was now torturing both limbs, a combination of the injury and the discomfort of his position.

‘Not if you stay where you are! But come any closer and you will test my patience just a little too much. As for talking, there is nothing to discuss! Simply turn away, and don’t come back before dark unless you want to be dining with your ancestors this evening!’

Gernot shook his head, pointing to the tree that was holding the Hamian upright.

‘I don’t think so! You have a broken leg, which means that you can only shoot in this direction! All I have to do is send my men around you on either side and they will have you at their mercy! And mercy is a quality I’m not feeling inclined to at this point in time!’

Husam laughed again, calling out across the gap between them.

‘You make it sound so simple! Whereas we both know that the ground to either side of this wooden road is an uncharted marsh, slow going to men who do not know it! If they are to avoid my arrows they will have to cast out far out to either side, so that by the time your warriors manage to get behind me the sun will be so close to the horizon that you might just as well have sat and waited for dark!’

The German shook his head in frustration.

‘Then you leave me little choice, Easterner. Unless you surrender I will butcher this captive, here before your eyes! A man takes an uncomfortably long time to die with a spear in his liver!’

The Hamian altered his point of aim imperceptibly, loosing an arrow that flickered across the fifty-pace gap between them and stuck in the wood at Gernot’s feet with a shower of spray that spattered across the man’s legs. Another shaft was fitted to the bow’s string before any of the Germans had time to react, Husam’s iron-hard eyes waiting for any move.

‘When you threaten to kill a prisoner you forfeit the right to any idea of truce! If you take your iron to my friend I will simply put an arrow through his chest to end his suffering, and then one more in your back when you turn to run!’

Qadir raised his voice, a note of anguish at his friend’s predicament straining his words as the Bructeri behind him gripped his collar.

‘Farewell Husam, best of comrades! Mention me to the goddess when you meet her!’

Gernot retreated stony-faced, pulling his captive backwards towards the place where his warriors waited, and Husam raised his voice to call after him.

‘If you wish to save lives, Gernot of the Bructeri, you simply have to keep your men away from my bow! Send your warriors at me and I will kill another ten of you before they finish me, and I will die a happy man! It’s either that or wait me out! When the sun touches the horizon I will give my life to the goddess Atargatis, but if you want me out of your path before then my spirit will be accompanied by a good deal more of your brothers than have already gone before me!’

‘I gave the archer his chance to save this one’s life. Now we must make our threat reality!’

Amalric looked up wearily at Gernot as the two men stood in the shelter of a grove of trees a hundred paces back from the point where the ambush had begun, both the track and the ground to either side littered with the corpses of horses and their riders. The remaining warriors were huddled on the track, Gernot’s older warriors and the king’s younger men talking quietly in their own groups as they waited for the sun to set.

‘I cannot see a good reason to torture this man. It will not shake that archer’s conviction that he must prevent our passage between now and the setting of the sun.’

Gernot shook his head impatiently.

‘It will demonstrate that we mean what we say!’

The king stared at him for a long time before answering.

‘It will prove that you mean what you say, Uncle, but I believe that he continues to be a potential hostage to use if we fail to rescue Gerhild by force. And I have decided to keep him intact for that moment.’

Gernot stared back at him incredulously.

‘But my King …’

‘You intend to tell me that this will be seen as a sign of weakness? Of an unwillingness to treat our enemies with the necessary harshness? I consider it to be an essential denial of our usual instinct to use these people for sport, recognising that I may yet need the bargaining tool of his life.’

‘Have you forgotten the ways in which they have treated us, over the many years since our people and theirs first made war on each other? Enslaved, betrayed, murdered by the tens of thousands?’

Amalric shook his head.

‘No. I have not. And nor have I forgotten our part in the events that have led us to this point. Our neighbours manage to maintain stable relationships with Rome, for the most part, some of them with histories of violence between them and the Romans that equal ours in some respects.’

His uncle stood in amazed silence for a moment.

‘I would not have expected to hear such a sentiment from you, Amalric.’

The king nodded.

‘Our views differ, Uncle. Let us agree to put these differences aside until this pursuit is complete. You can be very sure that I will fight tooth and nail to free my seer, and to return the eagle to its rightful place in our treasury, sparing no one who stands in my way. When that has been achieved let us speak again, and see if we can find common ground as to how we should approach the dangerous beast that squats on the far side of the Rhenus.’

‘Dry ground? In this wasteland?’

Gunda raised a weary eyebrow at Cotta’s disbelieving tone.

‘Dry ground, Roman. The only dry ground large enough to take our numbers this close to the track for a day’s march or more. I have used it on several occasions, to get some relief from the incessant soaking of my feet.’

Dolfus walked his horse alongside the two men’s mounts.

‘How far is it to Angrivarii territory?’

Gunda looked up the path’s watery ribbon, tinged red by the light of the setting sun.

‘Ten miles further up this track there is dry land to be found to the right, where the ground begins to rise towards the wooded hills to the north. From there another five miles march will bring us to the place you have asked me to find. We might meet some of their tribesmen, although the Angrivarii tend to avoid the place for fear of the spirits of all the men who died as they fought their way across it, and rotted where they fell. But any men we do meet will most likely only be farmers, and not capable of fighting off thirty of my tribe’s companion warriors.’

The decurion shook his head with a snort of dark amusement.

‘They won’t be thirty strong now. The caltrops we scattered behind us must have felled several horses, and that archer of yours had the look in his eyes of a man determined to leave this life the hard way, and take some of our foes with him. Tell me, can you feel any sign of their approach in the wood?’

Gunda dropped lightly from his horse’s saddle into the track’s dank water, putting a hand onto the rough wooden surface.

‘Nothing. They must be far behind us.’

Dolfus nodded decisively.

‘In which case camping for the night on this island of dry land you describe must be the only sensible thing for us to do. Lead us to it, scout.’

Gunda led the column away from the waterlogged track, and along a narrow strip of soggy going for fifty paces or so until their footing improved to dry ground, a small rise in the land having created an island in the marsh approximately twenty paces across. With the benefit of their slight elevation they were able to see in all directions, the swamp’s waters glistening with eye-aching brilliance in the late afternoon sunlight, the landscape around them devoid of any sign of trees in any direction for several hundred paces.

‘A considerable improvement. And now I see why you had us carry firewood with us.’

Gunda nodded at Dolfus’s statement.

‘There are islands like this scattered around this area, but this is the only one for miles that can easily be reached from the road. The nearest that I know of is several hundred paces further from the road …’ He pointed to the west. ‘And the path to reach it is hard enough to find in the daylight, never mind after darkness has fallen.’

Gerhild stepped between the two men, gesturing to Scaurus who was being assisted from his horse by Arminius and Lupus, shivering uncontrollably like a man with a high fever.

‘We need fire if we are to save this man’s life. The sickness caused by his wound has come upon him again, having bided its time since the goddess defeated it last night.’

Dolfus set to organising the camp while Gunda collected the firewood that had been tied to each rider’s saddle.

‘There is enough for a small fire that will burn through the night, fed carefully.’

‘Then light it now, do what you must for him while it’s still light, and allow it to burn down to embers that can be hidden from the road with a shield. We will stick out like the balls on a sacrificial bull with a fire burning on this raised ground, and I wish to offer the men pursuing us no encouragement.’

The guide inclined his head in agreement with the decurion’s command.

‘As you wish.’ He raised a hand to indicate the cloudless sky, and the quiet that had settled across the land, its oppressive quiet making the men of the detachment speak quietly despite the absence of any ears to overhear them. ‘Although any approach down the track would be heard while the horsemen were still miles distant on a night like this.’

‘So tell me again Briton, who went north with the priestess?’

Dubnus finished chewing the mouthful of the meat that he had cooked over an open fire.

‘Your decurion and his two troopers, Tribune Scaurus, his German slave Arminius, a boy who’s his pupil, and two Hamian archers. Two centurions also rode with the tribune, a retired veteran called Cotta and my comrade Marcus Corvus.’

Tiro nodded.

‘Centurion Cotta is known to me. He has performed services for the empire before, services that involved shedding the blood of one of Rome’s highest citizens to prevent an act of treason from turning into civil war. And even if it happened twenty years ago, he’s still a man worth watching for any sign that his loyalty to the throne might be slipping.’

The big Briton shook his head.

‘Cotta? The man’s a loyal Roman to the core, a true centurion. If he spilled some senator’s blood it will have been at the express orders of his superiors.’

The older man pursed his lips, leaning back against his saddle with a contented sigh.

‘So I believe. But that isn’t always how these things work, Centurion. A man who’s killed an emperor once …’ He paused, watching the Briton’s face intently. ‘Ah, so you do know what I’m talking about.’

Dubnus shrugged.

‘I’d heard rumours, nothing more.’

Tiro smiled knowingly back at him.

‘Rumours? Most of the work I do is concerned with the gathering and analysis of information that is mostly rumour, or no better than hearsay at best. Rumours kill, Centurion, and they tend to be somewhat impartial as to who gets caught in their net. Anyway, as I was saying, a man who’s killed one emperor, even if his victim was a half-hearted usurper who accepted the purple under the misapprehension that the current emperor was dead and his son was unfit to rule, that’s a man who won’t hesitate to do it again. And in some rare cases even long-retired centurions can make excellent assassins, given the motive.’

He stared at Dubnus for a long moment, while the Briton stolidly chewed on another mouthful of meat and stared back flatly at him, ignoring the fact that his response to the older man’s subtle interrogation was becoming overtly hostile.

‘And as for your friend Marcus Valerius Aquila …’

‘His name is-’

Tiro grinned wider.

‘Corvus? Never try to lie to a liar, Centurion. Your friend is the son of a once highly respected senatorial family, is he not? Two brothers, both war heroes and very, very wealthy men, a dangerous combination when put into close proximity with an emperor prone to any insecurity as to his own position. After all, of the seventeen emperors we’ve had since the divine Augustus took the throne, at least three have died in circumstances where the senate’s role was to say the least, somewhat dubious if not openly hostile. And so when our new, young, and very malleable emperor came to the throne to find the coffers bled dry by a decade of wars with the Marcomanni and the Quadi, it was both pragmatic and to some degree pre-emptive for him to deal with a few leading families, take their enormous wealth and remove them as threats. Not to mention cowing the rest of the senate into submission lest they join the list of proscribed names. But the Praetorian Prefect who was doing his bidding in this matter made one small but significant mistake in allowing Appius Valerius Aquila’s son Marcus to escape, and from within the confines of his own camp to boot! We know he made it as far as Britannia, where he fell in with the army …’ He stared hard at Dubnus for a moment. ‘With a unit of Tungrians it was alleged, and vanished from sight. Attempts were made to find and deal with him, but the men sent to do the job clearly weren’t up to the task, because they didn’t come back and the next thing we know is that he popped up in Rome with some stolen Dacian gold which, it seems, was instrumental in both his revenge and the rise to power of the man who now issues me with my orders.’

He stopped talking and raised an eyebrow at Dubnus, who shrugged in return.

‘That’s quite a story. Like something out of a play.’

The older man nodded.

‘Isn’t it? Although not every story ends as prettily as the plays we watch at the theatre, with the hero and heroine reunited and everyone miraculously happy with their lot, do they? Never mind, that’s what we’re here for, isn’t it? To make sure that your friends get out of the Bructeri tribe’s territory safely, and that the Angrivarii don’t cut them to ribbons the second they lay eyes on them. Never fear Centurion, we’ll be there when they come up the road from Aliso, it’s a short enough ride from here. And once we have Gerhild safely away from her people we’ll all be able to relax, won’t we?’

‘One man.’

Amalric shook his head in disgust at the archer’s blood-soaked corpse hanging loosely from the sapling to which he had been tied, turning back to stare at the bodies of those warriors who had fallen attempting to remove the Hamian from their path. Gernot nodded, reaching out and prying the bow from fingers already stiffening with rigor mortis. The dead man had cut his own throat with the dagger that now lay in the blood-soaked stagnant water at his feet, bleeding to death before the Germans had been able to reach the spot from where he had held them off for most of the afternoon.

‘One man.’ The noble nodded agreement, testing the bow’s draw. ‘But an archer of the highest possible skill, with targets forced to come at him from one direction. There is no shame to our having been delayed by this one man under these circumstances.’

Amalric shook his head, holding up what remained of the Hamian’s quiver of arrows with a bitter smile.

‘And he had no more than half a dozen shafts left. We could have rushed him at any time and cleared the road, whereas now all we can do is hope to find some dry ground on which to sleep, and renew our pursuit tomorrow morning.’

Gernot shook his head in disagreement, looking up at the evening sky with an experienced eye.

‘No, my King, there is another choice. More risky, but with at least some chance of bringing these thieves to account. The sky is clear, as you can you see, without cloud, and when the darkness falls the moon and stars will provide us with enough light to ride along this track, if we go slowly. If the Romans have ridden for an afternoon then perhaps the whole night will be enough time for us to catch them up. And even with our losses we are still twice their strength in numbers. We can attack in the time just before dawn, when they will be at their least vigilant.’

A thought occurred to him, and he beckoned the huntsman across to join them. His servant’s already doleful expression had become one of misery with the death of both of his dogs, one pinned to the track by a chance arrow, the other killed instantly by a powerful kick from a pain-crazed horse, but he came to his master readily enough despite his evident dolour.

‘Is there any dry ground up ahead, somewhere that Gunda might be tempted to halt for the night?’

The older man nodded vigorously.

‘Yes, my Lord, ten miles or so from here. It would be no use as a place to hide though, for every tree for a mile and more has been cut down for firewood by those who use it as a place of refuge from the marsh over the years.’

‘But it is dry?’

The huntsman nodded again.

‘It stands half a man’s height proud of the marsh, my Lord, and is large enough for a party the size of which you have described.’

‘And you could find it in the dark?’

‘I could, on a night such as this is likely to be, with a bright moon.’

Amalric stared down the track’s straight line, mulling what the two men had said.

‘So we might still catch them?’

Gernot grinned wolfishly.

‘Better than that, my King. We might catch them sleeping. I have one more idea that might give us an advantage that will allow us to take our enemies by surprise.’

‘He looks like he’s already dead.’

Dolfus stared down at Scaurus’s recumbent form in the fire’s flickering light with an expression that to Marcus looked more predatory than sympathetic. Gerhild looked up and shook her head at him brusquely.

‘He will live. I know this because I have seen it. But he will not be able to ride in the morning, nor walk any distance.’

‘I see.’

The decurion looked long and hard at the stricken tribune, then pursed his lips and walked away towards his men who were standing at the island’s edge keeping watch to the south, staring back down the track’s faintly visible line of reflected starlight. Squatting, he engaged them in conversation with his voice pitched too low for the words to carry.

‘I don’t trust that man. He sold us out to the Bructeri when it served his purposes to use us as decoys, and he’ll sell us out again to complete this mission, with or without the tribune.’

Cotta’s urgent whisper broke Marcus’s contemplation of his superior, and he looked over to where the cavalry officer was speaking animatedly to his troopers.

‘Do you think so? He delivered the warning that saw us run north, rather than surrendering the woman to Clodius Albinus.’

The veteran shook his head dismissively.

‘And how good a decision does that look, now that we have the pleasure of considering it once more? Rather than being safely tucked up in a fortress on the right side of the river, with the tribune getting the medical attention he needs, here we are in the middle of a watery desert with a mad woman intent on making him drink herb juice at every opportunity. And with the apprentice of whichever bastard who wanted us to come this way, rather than just getting onto a boat, getting ready to ditch us. I don’t think he was ordered to bring us out here to avoid our falling foul of the governor, I think he was told to get us away from the detachment and leave us to die in this swamp with some convenient story about how we died protecting the German woman.’

He fell silent as Dolfus turned away from his men, who resumed their contemplation of the twilight landscape while he made his way back to where Scaurus lay.

‘We’ll stay here tonight, but in the morning my men and I will be leaving with the witch. You can keep the eagle, for all the good it’ll do you when the Bructeri catch up with you.’ He looked at Marcus for a moment in silence. ‘Given your somewhat dubious past it’s probably for the best if you and your men stay here with your tribune. A quick and invisible death that will bring your family’s history to its inevitable end would be the best for all concerned, I’d have thought.’

He turned away, leaving Marcus and Cotta staring after him, the veteran shaking his head at the confirmation of his suspicions.

‘See? How could he know anything about you unless whoever he’s working for has been briefed by Cleander? You and Rutilius Scaurus are just loose ends waiting to be tied up as far as that bastard is concerned, so why not order his man on the spot to quietly do away with you? We’ve been had.’

11

‘There. Do you see it now?’

Dubnus stared at the night-time landscape in the direction that Tiro was pointing until he managed to pick out the tiny mote of light that the spy was showing him, slightly lower than the invisible line of the horizon but clear enough in the gloom that had descended as the night had progressed, and a bank of cloud had slowly but surely obscured the stars and moon.

‘It’s a campfire, you think?’

‘I’d say so. That will be Dolfus and your people, waiting out the night before travelling the last few miles to the meeting point.’

Varus frowned, his puzzlement invisible in the darkness of the hillside where Tiro had led the two centurions to look for signs of the detachment, away from their own fire’s light.

‘But if that fire is our people, then what are those?’

He was pointing to a spot well to the left of the original point of light, and Tiro stiffened as he realised that he’d missed something important.

‘I can barely see them. They look like … torches?’

The tiny pinpricks of light were barely visible, the distance making them equally as hard to discern as the assumed campfire. Dubnus strained his eyes to make them out, trying to reckon the separation between the two points in the distant, dark landscape.

‘They look like they’re miles away from the fire. Could they be …?’

‘Some sort of pursuit?’ A note of doubt had entered Tiro’s voice. ‘It’s possible. If your tribune and his men were spotted making their escape from the battle then it’s obvious that King Amalric and his closest warriors would have given chase. And if it is a pursuit then there’s no way we can warn them.’

‘That may not be true.’ Tiro turned to look at Dubnus in the near darkness, squinting at the object he was holding up. ‘I put this into my pack because I wanted to hear it sound in battle one last time, if I knew that my time to die was at hand.’

The spy stared at the horn for a long moment.

‘The problem, Centurion, is that the moment you blow that thing every Angrivarii for ten miles is going to know that we’re out here.’

‘And the problem, spy, is that if I don’t blow it then there’ll be no warning for the tribune and my comrades while whoever it is that’s carrying those torches creeps up on them. They’ll use the light to get within a mile or so, then put them out and cover the rest of the ground in darkness. And if they know what they’re doing they’ll wait until just before dawn, and attack without warning. It’ll be nothing better than murder. Do you want your man Dolfus to die and the woman to be recaptured by her people when they’re within sight of safety?’

‘There it is again. Can you hear it this time? Come away from the fire, you’ll not hear it over that crackling.’

Marcus listened for the sound that Cotta was describing, the distant, almost inaudible note of what sounded like a horn being blown.

‘No. Can you describe it?’

‘It’s nothing Roman, that’s clear. A metal horn would be higher in pitch. If I had to guess I’d say it was a bull’s horn. And whoever’s blowing it is a long way from here.’

The distant sound came to them again, and this time Marcus heard it, his face lighting up as he realised the source of the long, drawn-out notes.

‘Dolfus!’

The decurion walked across the small camp at his beckoning, a questioning look on his half-lit face.

‘You’ve mentioned having a superior giving you orders more than once. Is that who we’re meeting, once we get off this track?’

Dolfus nodded.

‘Yes, not far from here where the land starts to rise, and form the Teutoberg forest.’

‘And do you think we’re close enough to hear a horn blown from that place?’

The decurion pondered for a moment.

‘Possibly. If the man doing the blowing had strong enough lungs, and the wind was in the right direction.’

Marcus nodded decisively.

‘Then your superior has my brother in arms Dubnus with him.’

The decurion thought for a moment.

‘It’s possible.’

Cotta shook his head, tapping his ear.

‘It’s more than possible, Decurion, I’d guarantee it. That horn you can hear blowing …’ He fell silent for a moment, raising a finger as the clear but faint note of the horn sounded again. ‘That’s Dubnus alright, he’s been blowing the blasted thing every night for the last three months, pretty much. And that call …’ The sound came again, several long mournful notes so faint as to be almost ethereal. ‘That’s the legion signal to retreat. Wherever he is, he’s trying to send us a message.’

Dolfus stared at the two friends in disbelief.

‘You really think that your fellow centurion’s out there blowing a horn to warn you about something? How would he know we’re out here? And how could he see any danger in this darkness?’

Cotta waved a hand at the fire.

‘This meeting place, it’s on higher ground then this, right?’

‘Ye-es …’

‘Well then it’s obvious. Dubnus, and whoever it is that he’s with, can see our fire. And if they can see our fire …’

‘That’s close enough with the torches.’

Gernot dipped his blazing brand into the water that overlaid the track, extinguishing it in an instant, and a moment later the other torch-carrying warriors followed his example, plunging the Bructeri into near total darkness. The tribesmen waited in silence, knowing that only time could restore the night vision they had lost the moment they lit their brands.

‘Good enough.’ The noble gestured for his warriors to gather round, and when he spoke his voice was a harsh whisper intended not to carry in the still night air. ‘This is our last chance to retake the eagle, and to rescue Gerhild from the Romans before they cross into Angrivarii territory and she’s lost to us for good. Which means that we have two choices, my brothers. Either we turn back now, and return to our homes bearing the mark of shame for the rest of our lives, or we do whatever is needed to retrieve our lost honour.’

Holding up a hand to silence their protests at the idea of turning tail, he continued.

‘We have left good men behind us, men with injuries, men with wounds and, may Wodanaz guide their spirits to the gates of the underworld, men who have died for the tribe’s honour. I cannot consider the idea of betraying their sacrifice, and nor, I believe, can any of you.’

Their denials were instant, a rumbling chorus of assertion that they were all ready to fight and die for the tribe, for the eagle, for Gerhild, for their king. Gernot knew he had them now, had stoked the flame of their dismay at the Romans’ theft of their dignity from a flame of anger to an incensed blaze, and knew that not one of them would step back from whatever was necessary to make this last throw of the dice work in their favour.

‘Very well, my brothers. From here we walk in silence, one man behind another, and with as little noise as possible given that we still have to use this track until we are almost on top of our enemies. At the right moment we will turn off the track and circle round our enemy’s camp, until we are in position to attack them from a direction they will never expect. Move silently, my brothers, silently and slowly, giving the Romans no clue that we are upon them until the time comes to strike.’

He waited a moment, allowing them to consider what would come next.

‘But when you hear me call out the order to attack, make all the noise you can and move as fast as you can, for those few precious moments of surprise will be all the advantage we will have over men who stand on dry ground, and who may well expect us to make one last effort to overcome them.’

They were utterly silent now, considering the long, quiet approach march and the moments of gore-soaked mayhem that were to follow.

‘Some of us are going to die today. It is inevitable that some of us will be greeted by Wodanaz when we leave this coming fight, and that he will lead us to dine with our fathers and their forebears. Some of us may find ourselves with a death wound, knowing that they cannot possibly live. If that happens to you, then you must sell whatever is left of your life at a cost that will punish these usurpers. Hurt them, my brothers, even in the moment of your death. Put the last of your strength into the point of your spear, and the point of your spear through a Roman throat. If your spear is broken, or lost, pull out your hunting knife and throw yourself at the Roman who has killed you, and make him pay a high price for your life. And if you have no iron left to fight with, trip a man and leave him open to the next man’s spear, before you go to meet the god.’

He looked around the circle of men gathered around him and nodded slowly.

‘I know that we will be brave beyond any comparison, my fellow warriors. I know that we will make our ancestors proud, and create a story that our sons will be proud to hear told. And I know that we will succeed. My King?’

Amalric stepped into the circle, turning a slow circle to look at every man present.

‘I can add little to my uncle’s words, other than to tell you that I have never been as proud as I am now, proud to share this moment with you all, and proud to have the opportunity to go into battle with men such as yourselves. Before he charged at the Roman archer, and fell after being hit by no less than four arrows, our brother Waldhar said something to me that still echoes in my mind. He told me that he was willing to give his life for the good of the tribe. And so am I. For the good of the tribe, my brothers. I will return with the eagle or not at all, and the ravens will have my flesh if I fail in this. I will have revenge, and right the wrongs done to our proud people, or I will have death!’

Gernot nodded his head, making a fist of his right hand and pushing it forward into the circle of men who, after an instant’s pause, pushed their own clenched fists to join it.

‘Revenge or death, brothers. Revenge or death.’

‘And you, Centurion? How is your health? With all this concern for your tribune’s survival, you seem to have been quite forgotten.’

Marcus rose from his place beside Scaurus, who was lying on his own blanket with those belonging to both centurions’ covering him, bowing to the seer.

‘I am well, thank you, Madam. My concern is entirely for my friend.’

Gerhild looked down at Scaurus with a critical eye.

‘He will live, despite the fact that he will be as weak as a new born for the next day or two. No, you are the man for whom I have the most concern. Sit.’

The Roman sank back down onto his haunches, spreading his hands as Gerhild took her seat next to him, close enough for him to smell the sweat on her body.

‘As you can see, I have neither wound nor injury. My health could not be any more robust.’

She smiled sadly at him, her eyes holding his with an almost hypnotic power.

‘And yet there are wounds that you carry more savage than anyone could ever guess from an external examination of the flesh that houses your spirit, are there not? Injuries dealt to you by a hand of fate that seems destined to strike you down every time you attempt to climb back onto your feet? Good days and bad days, except that the bad days seem to come all too often, and the good days ration themselves with increasing strictness?’

He sat in silence, a tear glistening in one eye for a moment before running swiftly down his cheek as a tiny part of the defences he had built against the horrors he had seen and done cracked under the priestess’s gentle but insistent questioning.

‘You have suffered enough grief for one life, Centurion, and taken so many lives as a consequence of that suffering that the men involved have blurred into one in your memory. For a time it was enough for you to excel at the job of butchering your enemies, both those who had already destroyed your family and those who would have done the same to the members of your new familia had you allowed them to do so, but now even the exercise of your martial prowess is no longer enough to banish the melancholia that haunts you. Your spirit is close to death, choked by an uncontrollable growth of hatred which leaves you feeling little better than powerless on your ever rarer good days and crushed flat the rest of the time.’

‘I-’

‘There is no need to explain this to me. I feel your pain, it bleeds like an open wound and it prevents you from thinking or acting in the ways that were usual for you until the latest and worst blow you have suffered. And yet there is a moment fast approaching when you must be able to defend yourself, and those you care for the most, a moment that will find you wanting unless I can heal you.’ Her gaze seemed to intensify as she raised her arm towards him. ‘Take my hand.’

She sat stock-still, holding out her fingers to him, and Marcus suddenly knew compulsion of a sort he had never experienced before, a certain knowledge that if he reached out and touched the woman’s fingers all might yet be put right. He felt his own hand rising from his side without conscious effort, watching as the trembling, scarred and calloused fingers rose towards hers.

‘Madam …’

‘Give me your hand, Marcus, and I will take your pain for you. I will empty your mind of the hurt, and the betrayal, and the loss.’

His fingers were barely six inches from hers, and still slowly rising to meet them despite his bafflement.

‘What …?’

She smiled at him, her eyes boring into his.

‘Trust me, Marcus Aquila. I have only one gift to give you before I am taken by Wodanaz, but you have to allow me to present it to you.’

Her hand closed on his, her touch warm and dry, and without warning a sensation like a sudden jolt stung his eyes wide, unable to pull away from her as the priestess closed her eyes and muttered an incantation in her own language. After a moment she released him, swaying as if tired for a moment before opening her eyes with a wan smile.

‘So much pain. I could not take it all, for fear of losing myself to it, but I have done enough to allow you to find yourself again. You will need more than this to make you whole again, but time and the absence of conflict will allow you to deal with the remainder of what troubles you without my assistance. Now sleep, and when I call on you, wake with your palms itching for the feel of the hilts of those swords.’

She waved the hand at him, weaving a pattern in the air with her fingers and then standing up, touching him lightly on the head and pushing gently against his last physical resistance. His eyes closing, the Roman slumped to the ground next to Scaurus, already asleep.

‘The fire. I see its glow.’

Amalric squatted down, hissing the command to halt and staring hard into the darkness in the direction that his uncle was pointing.

‘I see it. Just a faint glow.’

‘They have masked its light with their shields, my King.’

The Bructeri king stared at the place where their quarry had taken shelter for the night, calculating in his mind, then turned to the huntsman behind him.

‘The fire is what … two hundred paces distant?’

‘A little more, my King.’

‘And you know a path by which we can approach this island in the marsh from the west?’

The hunter nodded.

‘If the waters have not shifted, and covered the ground I have trodden before, then yes I do, my King. And with their fire so well masked there will be no light spilled upon us as we follow that path across the front of any watchers they have set to guard the approach from the south. If your men can walk in silence …’

Gernot grinned mirthlessly.

‘The king has promised them all a great deal of gold from the king’s treasury, if we win this fight, to make them bold, but I have told them that if we are to win then there is a time for boldness and a time for us to move slowly and quietly, with the patient skill of a cat hunting that mouse. Until the time comes to strike, that is.’

‘At least we know they’re coming. Without Dubnus’s warning most of us would have been sleeping round the fire when the Bructeri struck.’

Dolfus grunted noncommitally, looking out into the darkness from their position next to the wooden road. Cotta had suggested that they should place men to watch the track and provide some early warning of an impending attack, and having volunteered himself for the first watch had been surprised to find the decurion accompanying him. He shifted position, grimacing at the water that once more filled his boots after the island’s temporary respite, scratching at an itch on one of his buttocks as he pondered how best to ask the question that was at the front of his mind.

‘So tell me, Decurion, how do you rate our chances?’

Dolfus gave him a long sideways look.

‘What do you think, Centurion? There are precisely six of us who look like they know what they’re doing in a knife fight like the one this will turn into. You and I, my two men, the tribune’s German slave, and perhaps that massive Briton …’ He shook his head unhappily. ‘The Hamian would be all very well in the daylight, positively murderous, but in the dark? Your friend Corvus, or whatever his name is, is a broken reed. Useless. The boy? He might have killed a man by mistake yesterday, but look what it did to him. He’s no warrior. And Scaurus is nine-tenths dead. If he’s not gone by the morning I can’t see him making it to nightfall tomorrow. So, there are only six of us to fight off how many? Fifteen? Twenty? The numbers we’re facing depend how many of them the Hamian was able to bring down before they put a spear through him, but I very much doubt it was enough to level the odds. I’d say we’re dead men, if whoever was blowing that horn was right in thinking that they’re coming after us in the dark.’

The veteran surreptitiously put a hand on the hilt of his dagger, ready for the reaction to his next question.

‘That wasn’t actually what I was asking.’

Dolfus’s head swivelled back to face him, his body seeming to tense.

‘And what was it that you were asking, Cotta?’

‘You tell me. You seem very sure of yourself in most other respects, let’s see if you can work out what’s on my mind. Go, take a wild stab.’

The younger man stared at him for a moment before speaking.

‘I see. Well there’s probably no point in my denying it, is there, since your mind’s clearly made up.’

He turned back to stare out into the darkness, and Cotta looked at him for a moment before speaking again.

‘You’re not going to deny it because you can’t. Whoever this mysterious man is that you report to, he answers to Cleander. And Cleander wants us dead. We know too much about his rise to power, for one thing, and then there’s the risk that one of these days that young man is going to come out of the stupor that he’s been knocked into by the death of his wife, and go after the emperor. He’ll become an assassin without fear of capture, or death, motivated by the rape of his wife and supremely gifted with weapons. And trust me, he’s sudden death with any weapon, I made sure of that years ago. So you’ve been ordered to bring us out here, and make sure that we vanish without trace, eh? Come on Dolfus, we’re all going to die anyway, the way you tell it, so why not unburden yourself and take a load off your spirit?’

The decurion shook his head slowly.

‘Whether you believe it or not, Centurion, I’m not the killer here. You’re not exactly without experience in that area of expertise though, are you, so perhaps you’re judging me by your own standards.’ Cotta nodded slowly, his mouth tightening as he remembered the moment that he killed and beheaded a man who had usurped the imperial throne ten years before. ‘You smile, and when you do that you look just like my master. The same hardness around your eyes, the same stare, looking at nothing. You’re probably fondling your knife even now, wondering whether to stick me with it?’

Cotta’s gaze shifted, finding the younger man staring intently at him with both hands raised.

‘Go on then. If you’re so sure, air your iron and put it deep in my neck.’

The veteran shook his head.

‘It doesn’t work that way, youngster. I never killed a man that didn’t deserve to die, and that includes Avidius Cassius.’ He fell silent for a moment, staring at the cavalry officer thoughtfully. ‘So if it isn’t you that’s going to kill us, it must be the man you serve.’

Dolfus laughed softly.

‘Or perhaps you’re just paranoid, Centurion. Perhaps Tiro is no more of a killer than I am, and you’re just building a case based on your own expectations. I-’

He fell silent staring intently down the track’s barely visible ribbon of darkness.

‘Did you hear that?’

Cotta shook his head.

‘No, but then your ears are sharper than mine. What was it?’

The decurion shook his head.

‘Probably nothing. An animal of some nature, perhaps, whatever lives in this desert of water. It was out in the marsh over there …’ He pointed to the right. ‘Where only a fool would try to walk. They’ll come up the road, that’s obvious, form a line here and then charge us through what little standing water there is between here and the island.’

He stood.

‘I’m going to go and make sure that the others are ready to fight. If you see or hear anything that looks like the Bructeri-’

‘You’ll be the first to hear about it, trust me. I plan to shout loudly enough for everyone for five miles to hear me.’

Sitting alone by the fire, with only the recumbent bodies of Scaurus and Marcus for company, Gerhild sat with her eyes closed and her lips moving silently in prayer. Dolfus stood over her for a moment, but if the seer noticed his presence in her half-trance she gave no sign of it, and the decurion’s stare passed over her to the place where Marcus lay as still as a corpse, barely even seeming to breathe.

‘As I expected — useless.’

He moved on, finding the closest of his men and squatting down on his haunches to wait for the coming attack with his sword drawn.

Gerhild’s eyes opened, and she drew in a lungful of air as if surfacing from beneath deep water, looking around herself at the deserted fire and the two sleeping men.

‘It is time then.’ Looking over her shoulder she spoke a single word, the note of command in her voice almost palpable in the cold night air. ‘Wake!’

Reaching out, she took a handful of what firewood remained and placed it above the heart of the small fire’s flames, staring down into the blaze with a rapt expression, her lips moving again. The wood caught light with a sudden crackle, each of the slim sections of tree branch igniting in swift succession and burning with a flare of light that threw shadows out across the marsh to the west. Another handful of wood flared up with equal speed, casting an orange light across the marshy landscape and revealing the scene that the seer had seen so many times in her dreams.

‘What are you doing, woman!’ Dolfus was suddenly standing over her with his sword drawn, his face contorted by anger. ‘The light will-’

‘The light will illuminate your enemies! They come from where you least expect it!’

As he stared at her, aghast, she took a handful of wool from the thick soldier’s cloak she had been given to replace her own, painstakingly pulled to pieces during the night, and threw it onto the growing blaze with a swift incantation. The oil-soaked wool took light with a spectacular flare, sending a tongue of flame high into the air between them, and Gerhild pointed to the west with sudden vehemence that rocked the Roman back on his heels despite himself.

‘Your enemy is there!’

‘Just a few dozen paces more.’

Amalric nodded at Gernot’s whispered comment, looking across the twenty paces of marsh that separated his men from the Roman camp. Their enemy’s fire was now in clear view, no longer hidden from them by the shields that had been arrayed to prevent its light being spied from the track. Having followed the huntsman’s lead away from the road to the west they had progressed in a wide arc around higher ground on which the Romans had taken shelter as predicted.

‘There!’

The king stared as a figure crossed in front of the fire, a distinctive silhouette in Roman armour.

‘There, my brothers. There are the men who stole our eag-’

He fell silent as the fire suddenly seemed to strengthen, and then grow brighter still as if new life had been breathed into its embers. A crackling noise was suddenly audible over the wind’s soft moan, and then, with a sudden incandescence that made the warriors blink with the ferocity of its assault on their eyes, the fire grew from a blaze to a tongue of flame fully as high as a man, its brilliance illuminating the Bructeri and casting their long shadows over the abruptly lit landscape.

Gerhild threw another handful of wool onto the fire, and in the renewed blaze of light Dolfus saw what it was she was pointing at, a line of men splashing towards the island through knee-deep water, their swords and spears shining in the fire’s orange light. Discovered, they roared their battle cries and came on at speed, wading through the muddy water in a fast-closing line of gleaming iron and snarling anger. The decurion raised his voice to call his men, shouting over the Bructeri’s growing tumult.

‘To me! The fight is here!’

Turning back to face the enemy he heard shouts and running feet behind him as the defenders realised their predicament and hurried to join him. Arminius ranged alongside him, his shield snatched from beside the fire and his spear held in a low guard, the boy Lupus beside him with a look so fierce that the Roman was almost moved to laugh, his two troopers alongside them and the giant Lugos at the line’s far end, the huge Briton hefting a heavy wooden club. Then the Bructeri were upon them, straggling out of the water one and two at a time as the differences in their size and strength, and the deepness of the water told on each man’s ability to get into the fight. Rather than charge into battle individually they paused to form a line ten paces from the waiting defenders, gathering their strength to attack as one, and Dolfus’s heart sank as he realised that they outnumbered his men two to one. Gernot stepped out of the water into their midst, pointing his sword at the men silhouetted by the fire’s light on the slope above him and bellowing a challenge.

‘There they are, my brothers, there they are! They have our eagle! They have our priestess, our sister! Kill them all!’

They advanced slowly up the slope in a wall of spear points, weighed down by their sodden clothing but resolute, each man singling out one of the defenders, and in that moment Dolfus knew that fight was as good as lost, that for every spear thrust his men could make, two or three would come back at them, making any resistance they could offer doomed to fail.

‘Die hard, you fuckers! Make them pay!’

He started at Cotta’s furious bellow, as the veteran bulled his way into the line alongside him with his spear held ready to fight.

‘You’re a brave man, Centurion. I’d have been tempted to be away up the ro-’

Something whipped past the Roman and struck a man in the Bructeri line, a spear thrown from his right, and while the dying warrior was still tottering on his feet with the spear’s blade protruding from his back, a figure bounded forward from out of the fire’s incandescent glow, throwing himself down the slope at the enemy line with a scream of pure animal rage that raised the hairs on Dolfus’s neck. Diving beneath the shocked tribesmen’s raised spears he came to his feet against their shields in a whirl of polished iron, elbowing the warrior directly behind him in the throat and then backhanding the gladius held in his right hand down into another’s thigh while hacking at the spear shafts to his left with the longer, pattern bladed sword to prevent them being turned on him.

‘Throw your spears and get into them!’

One of the tribesmen had dropped his framea and drawn his dagger, and as he drew it back to strike at the Bructeri’s assailant, Cotta hurled his own spear, spitting the man through his guts and dropping him kicking to the ground.

‘Throw!’

The sight of the enemy warrior dying on his spear’s shaft, and the whiplash of Cotta’s shouted order galvanised them, more spears lancing into the enemy line to either side of the bloody-handed fighter, who had turned away a spear thrust with his gladius and countered with his long sword, severed fingers flying as the blade met flesh and bone.

‘Into them!’

The defenders went down the slope at the run with their swords drawn, punching with their shields, stabbing with the points and using their momentum to push the Bructeri back into the water, leaving men bleeding where they had fallen. As the tribesmen struggled to fight back a man staggered from their line with an arrow in his chest, another dropping in the water at their feet a moment later with a bloody shaft protruding from his face, and as they wavered under the fresh attack a massive figure stepped into the marsh’s water, Lugos swinging his club in a wide arc to land a blow against his victim’s hastily raised shield that smashed the wooden board in two and flung him into the marsh water clutching at his wrecked ribcage.

Dolfus watched as the war band’s remnant backed away from them into the darkness that was encroaching once more as the fire’s momentary burst of flame died away, crouching behind their shields as another arrow took a tribesman’s leg away from beneath him. Dolfus then turned to address the man who had unexpectedly turned the fight, only to freeze as a long, pattern-bladed sword pricked the skin of his throat.

‘Aquila …’

‘Hold this moment in your memory, Decurion. I have your life in my sword hand, and one swift movement would be all it would take to deprive you of it. Remember this the next time you think to decry any man whose experiences have left him less than the man he was.’ He stepped back and sheathed the weapon, nodding to Cotta. ‘It will be dawn shortly. I suggest we leave this place as soon as we have some light, and make our way to the decurion’s meeting point before the locals come to investigate?’

‘It’s not very far now, a mile or so.’ Tiro nudged his horse to the left, skirting a copse that loomed out of the dawn mist. ‘I have to warn you that the meeting point I’ve agreed with my man Dolfus can be a little grisly at times.’

‘Grisly, Tiro?’

‘Yes. It was the site of a huge running battle between the men of three legions and five tribes. The legionaries came over a forested mountain over there …’ He pointed to their right. ‘With the tribesmen on them like wild dogs, snapping at them from all directions without any let up. They’d already lost one major battle on the other side of the range and were in full retreat, running for Aliso without very much of a semblance of discipline, although it was to get much worse as they got further south and the Germans just kept on coming at them all the way through the marsh. It was raining, pouring down if the accounts from the men that got away are to believed, the ground was soft even this high above the marsh, the army had already been cut into two halves and men were starting to panic. They marched and fought or they died, it was that simple, and most of those who fought and marched still died. At one time there were bones and pieces of broken armour all over this area, where legionaries who chose to run, or fell out of their units with exhaustion, or just got lost in the bad weather were brought to bay and slaughtered, but most of what was scattered this far from the main route of retreat was collected and buried further down the hill.’

He grimaced wryly.

‘Although once the avenging legions under Tiberius and Germanicus had finished slapping the tribes around for their temerity, and the new emperor had decided to make the Rhenus the permanent frontier, their remains were promptly dug up and scattered again, or used to decorate every sacred grove from here to the Albis. But that’s not all that was scattered across these hills. There’s a reason why the locals call this place the field of bones and gold.’

The mist had cleared a little, and the hillside before them was clear for several hundred paces. Tiro shifted in his saddle, looking about him with the air of a man disappointed at the absence of something or other.

‘Bones and gold?’

He nodded at Varus, returning his attention to the story.

‘Indeed. You see there’s an instinctive reaction on the part of most soldiers to impending battle, especially when the fight looks like something of a lost cause, as it obviously was by the time the remnants of three legions were fighting their way down these hills in the teeth of constant tribal attacks. And that instinct is to hide one’s most precious possessions, either to prevent the enemy from getting their hands on them or for later recovery, in the event that the individual in question manages to escape death. Sometimes men bury their gold, especially when they have too much of it to easily conceal, sometimes a more direct means of concealment is called for.’

‘They swallow the coins.’

Tiro smiled at Dubnus.

‘There speaks a veteran. Yes, a soldier in imminent danger does strange things, and sometimes one man’s example can spread through a tent party, or a century, or even a cohort, like fire in dry grass. And on this hillside in the pouring rain and howling wind, with numb fingers slipping on sword hilts and shields so wet they weighed twice as much as usual, the soldiers simply swallowed their gold.’ He dipped a hand into his purse and held up a gold coin. ‘See, it’s small enough to slip down easily enough. And in the course of what followed they were killed, for the most part, and left to rot where they lay, once they’d been stripped of their equipment and weapons. Of course their bodies were dragged about a good deal by the carrion birds and wolves, which meant that any gold in their guts was spread over a wider area than if they’d simply rotted away to bones where they lay. And so to this day there are still coins to be found, and the occasional bone for that matter, if a man has the nerve to brave the hillside, given it’s supposed to be haunted by the spirits of the men who were killed here. Every now and then someone goes treasure hunting and doesn’t come back, which is, of course, much more likely to be the result of earthly jealousy or simple robbery, but the more exciting explanation is usually the one that sticks in the minds of the impressionable. Speaking of whom …’

He rose up in his saddle looking around in search of something that wasn’t readily apparent.

‘Ah … Tiro? Those men of the Angrivarii tribe you’re waiting for …?’

The spy relaxed his thighs and sat back down on the horse’s back, looking over at Varus with a raised eyebrow.

‘Centurion?’

‘I have a confession to make.’

‘I see. Well I’m sure you’ll be happier with whatever it is that’s on your mind out in the open.’

‘Indeed. Well, it’s to do with the fact that you can’t see the men you were expecting to meet here.’

Tiro raised an eyebrow.

‘Is it? Should I be expecting to feel both a sense of respect for your abilities in the field of clandestine intelligence and just a little disappointment at being outwitted?’

‘I’m afraid so, Tiro.’

The older man shook his head in disgust.

‘It happens every now and then, usually just as I’ve convinced myself that nothing can go wrong. Go on then.’

‘Are you sure you’re alright with his weight, Lugos?’

The giant Briton looked down at Marcus with a sober nod.

‘Can carry he all day if need.’

Scaurus had remained unconscious throughout their hurried preparation to move from the campsite, and the big man had ended the short debate as to what was to be done with him by scooping his recumbent form up into his arms and striding away to the waterlogged track while Marcus and Dolfus had stared after him. Walking their horses, now that the risk of being overhauled by enough Bructeri to overwhelm them was no longer a threat, the party had made the three-mile march through a dawn rendered uniformly grey by the mist that hung heavily over the waterlogged land, with Munir walking at their rear alongside Arminius and Lupus, his bow strung and ready to shoot. After an hour’s walk Gunda indicated that they should leave the path and strike off up a shallow, grassy slope studded with trees and bushes. A dark line of trees dominated the northern horizon, rising away into the mist, and at the edge of the forest three men on horses waited. When they spotted the detachment they trotted their mounts down the field until Marcus recognised two of the riders, standing with his hands on his hips and a broad grin as they dismounted to stand either side of a man whose face was familiar without his immediately being able to put a name to it.

‘Your posture in the saddle looks almost natural, Dubnus. Perhaps practice really does make perfect?’

The Briton walked forward and wrapped his arms around his friend, looking him up and down.

‘And you look like a man I used to know. What happened?’

Marcus tilted his head to indicate Gerhild.

‘The priestess happened, it seems. One moment we were talking, and the next I awoke as if from a long sleep to find myself in the middle of a fight. And I am … myself, again, or perhaps just most of the man I used to be.’

The Briton stared at Gerhild for a moment, but her return stare was unabashed.

‘A healer must heal, or what purpose does she serve?’

Marcus looked at Tiro again, his eyes narrowing in recognition.

‘I remember you now … but …’

‘But I’m the governor’s secretary?’ He shrugged. ‘That is one of the roles I fulfil within the administration of Germania Inferior, but hardly the most important.’

Varus cut across the spy, his impatience evident.

‘He spies on the governor for Cleander. And if your old friend Clodius Albinus has been somewhat amateur in his attempts to deal with the tribune, this man’s efforts have been nothing other than entirely professional. We were supposed to be met here by a hundred warriors of the Angrivarii tribe who Tiro intended would take every man here other than himself and Dolfus into the forest and butcher them. Even these two.’

He waved a hand at the cavalry troopers, who shot their decurion venomous looks.

‘And what about the priestess?’

The young Roman looked at Tiro with a questioning expression.

‘Do you want to tell them, or shall I?’

The spy sighed.

‘The witch was to stay here, with the Angrivarii, as a bargaining tool for them to use in keeping the new king of the Bructeri in his place. That was the price I offered them for their co-operation in killing all of you. But I’m still trying to work out how you know all this?’

Varus turned towards him.

‘For a man who’s so very well connected I have to say you seemed to have missed something rather obvious, Tiro. Even the governor knew that my uncle Julius had played a significant part in cementing relations with a number of tribes on this side of the Rhenus, including, should you still harbour any confusion on the matter, the Angrivarii. Apparently by the time he’d hunted and hawked with them, and fought their champion with naked blades to prove his manhood, the tribe’s king was so taken with him that he named my uncle Julius as his brother.’ He sniffed. ‘I believe they went so far as to clasp bloody palms, or some equally barbaric ritual of unending friendship. Anyway, given that neither Dubnus nor I is foolish enough to take a man like you at face value, I was careful to speak privately with the Marsi king, when I got the chance. Apparently dear old Julius left his mark there too, and Sigimund was only too happy to discuss the state of the world with his friend’s nephew once everyone else was abed. He showed me the message you’d written to the king of the Angrivarii, and upon the application of a suitable amount of gold he was more than happy to allow me to substitute a message of my own. A message from a close relative of the Angrivarii king’s favourite blood brother, which effectively makes me some sort of adopted nephew, and therefore with my honesty and probity beyond question. A few months from now he’ll be a hundred thousand denarii better off, small change to a family of our status, and everyone will be happy with their lot. The Angrivarii have been watching us, of course, Dubnus picked them out from the start, but they’ll allow us free passage back to the Marsi, and the Marsi will of course honour their promise to you, delighted that Rome has seen better of the idea of transporting Gerhild across their territory while, of course, holding us to your side of the bargain. As I said, everyone will be happy except for you.’

Tiro shook his head in amazement.

‘And you think you’ll get away with flouting the authority of the imperial chamberlain? Cleander will have you hunted down, shipped back to Rome and torn apart by dogs in the arena. You, Varus, have condemned your entire family to liquidation, the men killed out of hand and the women made to suffer. Perhaps your sisters will be tied to posts in the Flavian Arena and left to the sexual depravities of intoxicated baboons, as I hear is the fate of many Christian women, now that a more relaxed regime has been restored to the people’s entertainments by our rather enthusiastic young emperor.’

Marcus walked forward, nodding to Varus before turning to the spy, his eyes slitted with anger.

‘You’ve chosen the wrong man to threaten with familicide. We only face that risk if there are any witnesses to-’

He turned to Dubnus, who had tapped his arm, then followed his pointing hand to see a small group of men walking up the slope from the marsh, a mud-stained scrap of white cloth held by the leader. The party stood and watched as they crossed the field, Marcus nodding slowly as he realised that the man holding the flag of truce was Qadir, and that he was followed closely by a man wielding a Hamian bow, an arrow nocked and drawn with its head pointed squarely at the prisoner’s back. Turning, he shot Munir a swift glance, and the watch officer hurried back to a point with a clear view of the field, putting a shaft to his bow and then waiting, ready to draw and shoot.

‘That’s close enough!’

Qadir stopped, and the motley group of half a dozen men behind him followed suit. The warrior with the bow stepped alongside the Hamian, holding the bow across his fur-clad body and raising the arrowhead to his prisoner’s neck.

‘Which one of you commands this usurpation of my tribe’s sovereignty?’

Marcus looked at Dolfus, who shrugged and gestured to the Bructeri.

‘Be my guest.’

The Roman walked forward, stopping ten paces from his brother officer.

‘Well met, Qadir. I’ll confess I didn’t expect to see you again alive.’

The Hamian smiled fleetingly.

‘Or in one piece?’

‘That too. But here you are …’

The bowman pushed on the arrow, drawing a trickle of blood from his captive’s flesh.

‘Here he is. Alive, for these few moments at least.’

Marcus shrugged.

‘One of his archers is watching you from just over there, with an arrow strung and ready to loose. You could run a hundred paces and still be within his reach. Kill this man and you cut your own throat.’

The Bructeri smiled without humour.

‘I am already a dead man. I am Amalric, king of the Bructeri, and when I return to Thusila without our tribe’s captured eagle, without my seer, with most of the warriors of my household spent in their futile pursuit and with my uncle dead, there will be no future for me. My short reign will be over, and I will be killed by the tribal nobles, as will my wife and son. There is no mercy possible when failure is as complete as mine. Which is an irony, Roman, since my intention ever since my coronation has been to establish a less contentious relationship with our neighbour across the Rhenus, and given that, the most likely successor will be a man who will appeal to the hatred of your people that still runs deep in my people’s blood.’

Marcus stared at him for a moment before speaking.

‘How can you claim to seek peace? I have seen the results of your priest’s sacrifices of Roman legionaries, taken from the western bank of the river and spirited back to your sacred grove to be maimed and physically ruined, kept alive for their sport.’

Amalric shrugged.

‘What is your saying? Rome was not built in a day? These things, and more, were a regular feature of my father’s reign, and his father’s before him, but they will not survive to be a part of my son’s. You have helped me in this by putting my chief priest to death in the most appalling manner possible, a way that showed he lacked the protection of the gods, and when I return I will find a replacement who is a little less thirsty for the blood of your people. But I will need your help if I am to succeed in this. Will you bargain for this man’s life with me?’

Dubnus walked forward with his axe hanging at his side, his voice grating as he stared at the king.

‘And what do you want in return for our brother?’

Amalric shrugged.

‘The eagle, for a start. We won that sacred prize in battle, and it is a symbol of the pride we still feel when we sing of that great victory. I cannot return without it. And my seer, of course, she must also be returned to her people. Nothing less will satisfy the Bructeri’s need to see their king return victorious over our oldest enemy.’

Marcus shook his head slowly.

‘All that? For the return of just one captive, however valuable he might be to us?’

The king eased the tension off the arrow still strung to his captured bow and pushed its iron head into the turf, then put the weapon over his shoulder.

‘I can also give you this.’

Putting out a hand he took a cloak-wrapped bundle from one of the young warriors behind him, holding it out to allow an object to fall out. Cotta started at the contorted features on the severed head that came to rest staring sightlessly up into the grey morning sky.

‘Gernot.’

Amalric nodded.

‘Ah, the trader. Yes, this is Gernot. My uncle, and with my father dead the strongest believer in our state of perpetual war with Rome, a belief they shared from boyhood. I always planned to kill him at some point, but the opportunity was too strong to ignore after our defeat in the swamp. I instructed the closest members of my household to hang back, and allow Gernot’s men to do the fighting and dying, which left him vulnerable to my sword when we retreated in defeat. This negotiation would have been impossible were he to have witnessed it, and I suspect he would have been the man to supplant me on the throne were I to have returned to Thusila empty-handed. He had to die.’

Marcus frowned.

‘What of the men behind you?’

‘Mine from their helmets to their boots. They are boyhood friends who grew to manhood with me, wenched with me, fought with me, laughed with me and drank with me. They will tell tales of my audacity in taking back that which was stolen from the tribe, and my people will love me all the more.’

Marcus shrugged and turned back to Dolfus.

‘What would you do?’

The decurion opened his mouth to speak, but Tiro beat him to it.

‘Spit on his bargain! The empire doesn’t want peace with these people, it wants a state of perpetual war between them, alliances shifting at Rome’s behest as it befriends first one tribe and then another. Keep the eagle, and the witch, go home and be heroes while this would-be peacemaker goes back to face his doom. I’m sure we can find some way to smooth over the awkwardness between us if-’

Dolfus cut him off with a wave of his hand.

‘You asked for my opinion, Centurion?’ Marcus nodded, and the decurion turned to Amalric. ‘Then your bargain is accepted. On one condition.’

Amalric stared at him for a moment.

‘Which is?’

The Roman pointed at Tiro, a look of disgust on his face.

‘You will take this … man … with you as a captive. I don’t care what you do with him as long as you ensure that he never escapes from his captivity. Use him as an advisor if you like, he’s clever enough, although I’d counsel you to treat his words with caution. Or make a footstool of his bones and dried skin if you like, it matters little to me.’

Tiro took a step forward, his voice raised in outrage.

‘You cannot do this! I am a valued agent of the imperium, a man-’

He crumpled to the grass like a puppet with its strings cut as Dubnus tapped him briskly behind the ear with the butt of his axe. Dolfus looked down at his sprawled body for a moment, then turned back to the king.

‘But if he ever does escape I’ll make sure of one thing …’

He stepped closer to the German, close enough to reach out and touch the king, his words spoken vehemently but softly enough not to be heard by the men behind him.

‘I’ll make very sure that your tribe find out that you’re the man who stole the eagle from your own treasury and gave it to me, on his orders. I’m giving you your freedom from his intrigues, and those of the men who will inevitably follow him, if you’ll let me do so. When I return to Claudius’s Colony I will find your file, in his doubtless comprehensive records of who informs on who within the tribes, and who has been an agent of Rome, however unwillingly, however pragmatic their association with the empire, and I will destroy it. Take him away. And if I were you I’d bury him as deep as you can when you tire of his incessant smug prating and hand him to your priests to make reparation for the things he’s done to your tribe and others over the years. He signed his own death warrant when he instructed the Angrivarii to kill my men.’

Amalric nodded, gesturing to his men to pick up the spy, then to Qadir with an open hand.

‘You are free. But as the chief priest of my tribe I suggest that you reconsider your godless ways before they get you killed. There, I have fulfilled my part of the bargain, have I not?’

Marcus nodded, taking the iron-bound box from the trooper who was carrying it and holding it out it to the king.

‘This eagle was never formally lost, so its return could only have been an embarrassment to be covered up. Swear to me that it will never again be used to torture any Roman.’

Amalric nodded.

‘I swear to honour its capture in different ways.’ He held out his hand to Gerhild. ‘Come, sister. Your people await you.’

The seer frowned.

‘But I dreamed that I was to die here, on the field of bones and gold.’

‘Not everything you dream comes true. Or perhaps this is a prediction for another day? Until the day that Hertha claims your spirit you can make good use of the extra time you’ve been given by helping my people worship the earth goddess alongside their devotion to Wodanaz.’ The king looked at Gunda. ‘And you, brother, you have spent the last fifteen years roaming the frontier on both sides of the river. You will have seen and done things that we can only imagine. Will you return to my land, and share the wisdom you have gathered with me?’

The guide shook his head with a smile.

‘No, my King. An order of banishment cannot be removed from a man’s head once sentence is passed, and your priests would be duty bound to execute me for the sin of disobeying that order, would they not?’

Amalric smiled more broadly.

‘Leave that problem to me. I am, after all, the king. I write the rules of our religion. And besides, when it becomes clear to our people that you, an outcast, still loved your people enough to become Wodanaz’s chosen means of defeating our enemy by luring them out here, onto our ground, they will clamour for you to be forgiven. When they realise that the recapture of our eagle, whose theft was abetted by my uncle Gernot of all people, and the rescue of your sister from the clutches of Roman spies were both mostly your doing, I suspect that any resistance to your reinstatement as a member of the tribe will melt away. You have my word on it.’

Gunda nodded solemnly.

‘Then I can only accept, my King.’ He turned to Marcus and bowed. ‘Give my thanks to your tribune when he wakes, Centurion. Tell him that I renounce my claim on the three aureii he promised me. I have earned something of much greater value in return.’

‘You’re telling me that the witch was actually the king’s sister?’

Dolfus drank from his water skin before answering Scaurus’s question, looking into the fire that lit the clearing in which they had made camp for the night before re-entering Marsi territory. The tribune had regained consciousness that afternoon after almost a full day of sleep so deep that his comrades had for a time feared the worst, but his recovery since waking had been swift. While the wound still troubled him it was now devoid of any sign of infection, and his demeanour was more or less back to its usual acerbic view of the world.

‘Yes, Tribune. Tiro told me that Amalric’s father was wont to use his prerogatives as the king to bed any female that took his eye, and long before his marriage produced any children he fathered Gerhild and Gunda as twins by one of his wife’s serving women. It was all kept very quiet, of course, to avoid the risk of a bastard child contesting the throne, and neither of them had any idea of who their father was until much later, when Gerhild worked it out on her own. When the queen finally managed to turn out a male heir she insisted that Gunda be outcast when the opportunity arose, despite the extenuating circumstances, to finally remove any risk to her son’s succession. And while Amalric’s father agreed in order to keep the peace with his wife, he deemed the girl too valuable to the tribe to share her brother’s fate, and instead had her incarcerated in the tower close to Thusila so that he could consult her on both his own failing health and her prophecies for the future.’

He drank again, grimacing at the memory of his service to the spy master.

‘It was Tiro who put the idea of kidnapping her onto Cleander’s desk. From what he told me it seems that he feared Amalric would seek peace with Rome, and in turn destabilise the tribes around the Bructeri. The Marsi, Chamavi, Angrivarii, and several others would all have had their noses put out of joint, whereas a hostile Bructeri would ensure the status quo in the region, and all at no more cost than the occasional soldier abducted and tortured to death. And of course he had leverage over the king, who had made his inclination towards peace clear to one or two Romans to whom he would have been better off saying nothing, including, ironically enough, your centurion’s uncle.’

Scaurus shifted his position with delicate care for his wound, looking over at Varus with a questioning expression.

‘And you, Centurion, actually had the balls to intercept Tiro’s message to the Angrivarii and replace it with your own?’

The younger man shrugged.

‘I suppose it’s a question of that old adage, Tribune, it isn’t what you know, but who you know. I’ve sat and drunk wine with my uncle Julius often enough to have heard all of his stories about the various tribal kings he met while he was ensuring that they would all keep their swords sheathed when Rome’s attention was elsewhere. He might have been the quintessential man of action, but by the gods he could talk with a cup or two of good Falernian inside him. I felt as if I knew them all personally, so approaching the king of the Marsi wasn’t quite as off-putting as it might otherwise have been. And knowing his strong motivation towards a certain yellow metal, it wasn’t too hard to recruit King Sigimund to our way of thinking, once he had an even more significant purse than the one Tiro had given him in his hands.’

Scaurus lay back, looking up at the tree branches above his head.

‘I suppose we can be grateful that Tiro wasn’t sufficiently paranoid to make sure that neither you nor Dubnus were carrying any gold with which to effect such a change of heart.’

Dubnus laughed sourly from the other side of the fire.

‘Has nobody told you? The devious bastard told us that he would need every aureus he could lay hands on, and demanded access to your private effects in order to ransack what was left of the gold that stuck to our fingers during our exposure of the praetorian prefect.’

Scaurus nodded.

‘It was always my expectation that Cleander knew well enough we’d kept something back, even if Clodius Albinus wasn’t shouting to that effect from the rooftops. I’d imagine he told Tiro to use us as a source of funds, not least to make sure such a useful asset was removed from my control. That’s a pity, but unavoidable, I guess. So how did you manage to persuade the king of the Marsi to help you out?’

He looked expectantly at Varus, a familiar frown spreading across his face as the centurion’s expression twitched with barely suppressed humour.

‘With gold, Tribune.’

‘But if Tiro had our gold …?’

‘Tiro had some of our gold. It was obvious to me from the moment he pulled me off the street and made it clear who he really was that he was likely to be serving only one interest, and that we couldn’t trust him not to leave us face down in a ditch if the situation called for it. So I took the liberty of removing most of the gold from your chest.’

Scaurus frowned at him in disbelief.

‘How? It was locked. You told me that Tiro was forced to break it open.’

Varus smiled indulgently.

‘Your officers, Tribune, have long been less convinced of your immortality than you yourself seem to be. We copied the key to your chest months ago, with the assistance of a certain German, which made it the work of a moment for me to remove most of the coin and hide it about my person, and that of my colleague Dubnus, before Tiro made his move.’

The tribune looked from Varus to Dubnus, and then back again.

‘About your persons? Does that mean …?’

Dubnus nodded sourly.

‘Yes. It does. And if you don’t mind, Tribune, I’d rather not discuss it any further. I may never be the same again.’

Mastering his sudden urge to laugh out loud with a visible show of will, Scaurus nodded gracefully.

‘Very well, we’ll pass over the means by which you managed to preserve what was left of our gold …’ A thought occurred to him. ‘Is there any of it left, by the way, and if there is … where is it?’

Varus patted his purse.

‘Enough to get us back across the Rhenus, and to take what’s left of our men wherever we decide is the safest. But as to where that might be …’

Silence fell across the circle of men, broken at length by the tribune.

‘And there’s the rub. The decurion can probably get away with just returning to his unit, and telling anyone who comes asking that Tiro went across the border into Bructeri territory and didn’t come back. Which is true, as it happens, even if it does omit a few details. But ourselves?’

Marcus poked at the fire with a stick he was holding before he spoke, his face illuminated by the blaze’s orange light.

‘It’s hard to deny that Tiro’s instructions to have the Angrivarii kill us all must have come from Cleander. Which means that any return to Rome would be risky in the extreme. It might be wise for us to find somewhere quiet and vanish for a while, the remnants of our detachment too, to avoid their being tortured for information if they’re spotted returning to the cohort. In due course Cleander will probably fall victim to his own inflated sense of self-worth, and manage to get himself executed, at which point we can possibly risk coming out of hiding. Possibly.’

‘But …?’

The young centurion looked up at Scaurus, his expression sombre.

‘But we’d be leaving Julius and two cohorts of good men at the mercy of Cleander’s decision as to whether our disappearance is genuine or just contrived, since he won’t get any reassurance on the subject from Tiro. Or anything at all, other than a bald statement from whoever he’s set to watch his spymaster that Tiro crossed the river with us and nobody came back. And it won’t take long for our association with our colleague’s cousin and his fleet to make him start thinking, will it?’

Scaurus nodded.

‘And if he suspects we’ve survived, he’ll probably stop at nothing to find out where we are. That would put Julius and Annia at severe risk of falling under suspicion, and being tortured for our whereabouts. Not to mention your son. And of course there are two cohorts of men to consider. If he sees fit to do so, a man in Cleander’s position could condemn them all to never seeing their homes and families again with the swift flourish of a pen.’

An uncomfortable silence fell upon them, each man reflecting on an unpalatable choice.

‘Rome it is then.’

Scaurus nodded at Marcus’s flat statement.

‘Unavoidably so. I’m sure we can come up with some explanation or other for our deviation from the original plan to escape by means of the fleet, and justify surrendering the witch without making ourselves look like traitors.’ He stared at the young centurion for a moment. ‘And at least one good thing came of all this. It looks to me as if whatever it was that she did to you last night has burned away both your need for revenge and your sense of self-loathing at having taken it.’

Marcus stared into the fire as he answered, his expression unreadable.

‘Possibly it has, Tribune. I no longer feel anything for the men I’ve killed, no remorse, no connection to them at all. It’s as if all that death took place somewhere else, and I was simply an observer. But as to whether it has quenched the heat of my urge to revenge on the men who killed my wife?’

He poked at the logs again, staring into the flames as if seeing something there that held his attention for a long moment before he spoke again.

‘Perhaps …’