Arrows of Fury

1

September, AD 182

The Tungrian centurions gathered round their leader in the warm afternoon sunshine, sharing a last moment of quiet before the fight to come. Marcus Tribulus Corvus winked at his friend and former chosen man Dubnus, now centurion of the 9th Century, which Marcus had previously commanded, then nudged the older man standing next to him, his attention fixed on the ranks of soldiers arrayed on the hillside behind them.

‘Stop mooning after these legionaries, Rufius, you’re a Tungrian now whether you like it or not.’

Rufius caught his sly smile and tip of the head to Julius, the detachment’s senior centurion, and picked up the thread.

‘I can’t help it, Marcus. Just seeing all those professional soldiers standing waiting for battle takes me back to the days when I stood in front of them with a vine stick. And that’s my old cohort too …’

Julius turned from his scrutiny of their objective and scowled at the two men with an exasperation that was only partly feigned. Rufius nudged Marcus back, shaking his head solemnly.

‘Now, brother, let’s be fair to our colleague and give him some peace. It’s not his fault that it’s taken all morning and half the afternoon to get two thousand men and a few bolt throwers into position. Even if my guts are growling like a shithouse dog and there’s enough sweat running down my legs to make my boots squelch for a week.’

Dubnus leaned over and tapped the veteran centurion on the shoulder.

‘I think you’ll find we call that wet stuff “piss” in this cohort, Grandfather.’

The older man smiled tolerantly.

‘Very good, Dubnus. Just you concentrate on taking your lads into action as their centurion for the first time, and I’ll worry about whether I’ll be able to hold my bladder in a fight for the fiftieth time. Youth, eh, Julius?’

Julius, having turned back to his study of the defences looming before them, replied in a tired tone of voice that betrayed his growing frustration with their prolonged wait in front of the tribal hill fort they would shortly be attempting to storm.

‘Might I suggest that you all shut the fuck up, given that it looks like we’ll actually be attacking soon? Just as soon as those idiots have been cleared from the top of their wall that’ll be us on the march, and ready for our starring role in Tribune Antonius’s great victory over the Carvetii tribe. When I send you back to your centuries you get your men ready to advance, you repeat our orders to them all one last time, and remember to keep your bloody heads down once we’re on the move.’

Julius cast a disparaging glance at the batteries of bolt throwers ranged alongside his four centuries, their sweating crews toiling at the weapons’ hand winches as they ratcheted the heavy bowstrings back ready to fire. He tugged at the strap of his helmet, the crosswise crest that marked him as a centurion ruffled by the breeze as he turned back to stare at the wooden walled fort to their front.

‘I don’t trust those lazy bastards not to underwind and drop the occasional bolt short. And when we do attack, let me remind you one last time that our objective is to break in and take the first rampart. Just that, and only that. Tribune Antonius has been crystal clear on the subject.’

Marcus managed to keep a straight face despite Rufius’s knowing smile. It was an open secret among the officers of the 6th Legion’s expedition against the rebellious Carvetii tribe that the legion’s senatorial tribune, the legatus’s second-in-command, was desperate to prove his readiness to command a legion of his own before his short tenure in the position ended to make way for another aspiring general.

‘Once the way’s clear to the second gate we let the legionaries through to take their turn, got it? So, clear any resistance behind the first wall and then hold your men in place. No battle rage, and no trying to win the fortification crown. Not that any of us would ever be so favoured with two cohorts of regulars all vying for the honour. Once we’ve done our bit I’ll call the bloody road menders forward and they can do the rest.’

The officers clustered around him turned to watch as the bolt-thrower battery to the right of their soldiers loosed a volley of three missiles at the hill fort’s outer wooden palisade, barely two hundred paces from the ranks of their soldiers. At such close range the weapons crews were taking full advantage of their weapons’ accuracy, and another of the barbarian warriors lining the fort’s wooden walls was plucked away by the bolt’s savage power, most likely dead before he hit the ground behind the palisade. After a moment the remaining defenders ducked into the cover of the fort’s thick wooden beams, and the artillery crews grinned their satisfaction as their officer shouted at them to get back on their weapons’ hand winches and prepare to shoot again. Julius nodded.

‘That’ll be it; their heads are down. Get back to your centuries.’

The four centurions saluted him and turned away, heading for their places in the two columns of auxiliary infantry waiting to either side of the heavy wooden ram that was key to their assigned task of breaking into the hill fort. Dubnus, the leader of the century that led the right-hand column, a tall and broad-shouldered young centurion with the frame of an athlete and a heavy black beard, spoke quickly to his chosen man, who in turn set the century’s watch officers to one last check that every man was ready to fight. While they fussed over armour and weapons for the final time Dubnus shouted the century’s orders across their ranks, repeating Julius’s command to take the first rampart and then hold to allow the legions through with their assigned task complete. That done he drew his gladius and picked up a shield he’d left on the ground in front of his men, smiling wryly at Marcus, who stood at ease beside him in front of the century with his helmet hanging from one hand.

‘When I got my vine stick last month I assumed I’d never have to carry a shield again in all my days…’

His friend’s eyes were alive with the prospect of the impending action. He was as tall as Dubnus, and if his body was less massive in its build it was still impressively muscled from the months of incessant conditioning since he had joined the cohort in the spring. His hair was as black as a crow’s wing, and his brown eyes were set in a darker-skinned face than was usual in the locally recruited auxiliary cohorts. A long cavalry sword was sheathed on his left hip, while the shorter infantry gladius, which usually hung on his right hip, was in his right hand. Its ornate eagle’s-head pommel gleamed in the afternoon sunlight, the intricately worked silver and gold polished to a dazzling brilliance.

‘… and yet here you are, hefting a painted piece of board again as if you were still in the ranks? Perhaps you’d rather go forward with just your vine stick for protection, eh, Dubnus?’

‘No, I’ll put up with the burden this once, thank you, Marcus. Those blue-nosed idiots aren’t going to keep their heads down for long, and they’ll throw everything but the water troughs at us once we’re through the gate. If we get through the gate. Now, you’re sure you don’t want to lead the Ninth Century forward one last time?’

His friend shook his head, gesturing to the front rank of the century arrayed behind him.

‘No, thank you. These are your men now. I’m only along for the ride. After you, Centurion.’

A sudden bray of trumpets stiffened their backs, calling the waiting centuries to readiness for the inevitable command. Marcus pulled on his helmet, his features suddenly rendered anonymous by the cheek guards’ brutal lines, then took up his own shield.

‘Infantry, advance!’

Julius turned back to face his men from the head of the left-hand column, drawing his sword and pointing it at the fort.

Tungrians… advance!’

At his command the detachment’s two columns marched steadily forward down the gentle slope that ran down to the hill fort’s perch high above the valley below. Three sides of the fort’s position were utterly unassailable owing to the heavily forested and precipitously steep slopes that fell away from the pinnacle to the north, south and east. The only possible approach to the hill fort was from the west, where a flat and treeless ridge angled up to meet the hill on which two legion cohorts and their supporting artillery were gathered, ready to follow up on the advance of their Tungrian auxiliaries. Bordered on both sides by the wild forest of oak and birch that made the hill fort’s steep approaches so difficult, the space beneath the trees thick with holly, alder and hazel that made it practically impassable, the ridge’s wide path led arrow straight down to the fort’s massive outer gates. Only here was there any realistic prospect of an attacker’s advance meeting with anything but disastrous rebuff, but in anticipation of such an obvious approach, the fort’s occupiers had long since constructed an elaborate series of defences across the fort’s western face. Three successive palisades of thick wooden beams defended the innermost point of the fort, the hill’s flat summit.

The Tungrians hunched behind their shields as the fort’s wooden rampart loomed in front of them, casting nervous glances at the thirty massively built barbarians striding purposefully between them. An iron-tipped battering ram fashioned from a tree trunk hacked from the surrounding forest hung between the two ranks of prisoners, and swung to and fro as they marched down the ridge’s slope. Each pair of men on either side of the ram was shackled together at the wrist, their chains wrapped around the tree trunk to remove any chance of flight, and every man was naked from the waist up, while a legion centurion and a dozen hard-faced soldiers marched alongside them in grim silence with drawn swords. The legion officer barked a command into the oppressive silence that greeted their advance.

‘When we reach the gate you barbarian bastards will swing that ram as if your lives depend on it. Which they do!’ He waited a moment to allow the men among them that spoke some Latin to translate his words for the others. ‘When the gate’s breached you will be released from your chains, and you will then go forward into the fort and take on the defenders with any weapon that you can get your hands on. Any man that runs will be put down by the soldiers alongside you or behind you without a second thought, so if you think that’s a better choice than going through the gates you can think again. Those of you that survive the attack will be freed to return to your villages with your second brand.’ Some of the men glanced down at the mark crudely burned into their right forearms, ‘C’ for ‘captivus’. ‘Let me remind you that if you decide to run, and in the unlikely event that you actually get away with it, the lack of that second brand to cancel out the first one will get you crucified when you’re recaptured. And that, my lads, is not a pleasant way to leave this life. Far better to die cleanly here in the sunlight than choking out your last miserable breaths in agony, and with your back opened up like a side of bad meat.’

Dubnus nudged his friend.

‘Keep your eyes open for them once we’re inside. I’m pretty sure that half of them fought us at Lost Eagle, I even recognise a couple of them, and they’ll probably be only too happy to take one or two of us with them. Especially men wearing crests on their piss buckets like you and me.’

Marcus nodded grimly as the attacking force came to a halt in front of the massive wooden gates.

‘Archers, ready…’

He glanced back, seeing the century of Syrian archers arrayed behind their small force taking up positions from which to shower the ramparts with arrows if the defenders were sufficiently unwise to show themselves. The legion centurion commanding the ram’s conscripted bearers pointed at the gates, bellowing the command for them to start their assault. With a collective grunt of effort the ram-bearers swung the tree trunk backwards, then heaved it forward with a collective lunge, the iron head’s arc ending against the gates’ timbers with a rending crash, sending a shower of dust cascading down on to the leading Tungrian soldiers waiting alongside them. A tribesman popped up from behind the wall and lifted his arms to hurl a rock down on to the ram’s bearers, but fell back with an arrow in his neck and a dozen more studding the palisade’s wooden wall before the missile even left his hands. Twice more the ram swung back and hammered into the gate’s creaking timbers, and with the fourth blow the left-hand gate sagged tiredly on to the ground, ready to fall. Julius barked an order back into the expectant silence.

‘Tungrians, wait for my command…’

The ram’s fifth collision with the fort’s defences ripped away the left-hand door; its shattered remnants fell back into the gap between the fort’s first and second palisades in a cloud of dust and splinters. Without the strength of its support, the right-hand gate surrendered after another two blows of the ram’s massive iron head, leaving the gateway open and empty. The waiting legionary guards tossed keys to the barbarians’ chains to the shackled men, waiting behind their shields with drawn swords as the prisoners freed themselves from the ram. Some of the barbarians gathered their chains to use as crude weapons, while others simply looked about them at the Roman troops gathered to all sides in a combination of hatred and simple terror. With the last of them freed, the centurion pointed his sword at the gateway.

‘Go! Go and earn your freedom!’

For a moment longer the prisoners hesitated, until a shaggy-haired giant who had hefted the ram’s heavy nose with straining muscles bellowed his defiance and loped forward into the fort, triggering a collective howl of anger and a sudden mad charge from the men behind him. As the last of the barbarians vanished through the gateway, Julius flashed his sword down.

‘Advance!’

The four centuries trotted quickly towards the smashed gate’s opening, flinching involuntarily as the bolt throwers on the hill behind them spat their heavy missiles over their heads in a salvo of shrieking iron. As Marcus rounded the gateway and stepped over the fallen gates’ shattered timbers a falling man rebounded from the palisade in front of him and hit the ground with a wet crunch of shattered bones, a bolt buried deeply in his chest. He stepped forward and hacked reflexively at the dying man’s head to make sure of the kill, then stared up and down the curved face of the inner wall. There seemed to be no other target for his sudden urgent need to take his blade to another enemy, only the half-naked barbarian prisoners milling about between the walls to either side of them and a few scattered corpses of the bolt throwers’ earlier targets. He started as a scream sounded from the rampart to his rear, suddenly feeling horridly vulnerable to whatever was happening above and behind him. Instinctively raising his shield as he spun to face the outer wall, he felt a clanging thud as a spear intended for his back found only the iron boss in the shield’s centre. The spearman howled his frustration at the miss, then staggered forward off the wall and turned a neat half-somersault to the ground with an arrow buried in his neck, the price of standing to make the throw.

A flicker of movement caught Marcus’s eye, a mob of a hundred or more barbarians streaming round the fort’s inner wall from his right, waving swords and axes in the air as they charged towards their attackers with berserk howls. They ripped through the barbarian prisoners without mercy, clearly aware of their former allies’ need for redemption through victory and taking no chances with their loyalties. For whatever reason, and whether it made sense or not, the defenders had committed most of their strength to meeting the Tungrian attack head on. Any chance that the legion cohorts would be bearing the brunt of the battle once the auxiliaries had broken the fort’s first line of defence was clearly no longer a reality. Dubnus had seen the barbarian charge, and stepped forward with a bellowed command that cut through the moment’s confusion.

‘Form a line!’

A good part of the 9th Century was through the gate already, and in seconds they had an unbroken wall of shields raised across the gap between the first and second palisades, the other centuries clustering to their rear in the thin space between the walls. The wave of attackers crashed into them, hammering at the shield wall with swords and axes, while the Tungrians held them at bay and stabbed back at them with practised skill, aiming killing blows at their throats, bellies and thighs. Stuck behind the line, Marcus craned his neck to see what was happening behind the fort’s enraged defenders. As he watched, the massively built prisoner who had headed the first wave of attackers through the gateway got back to his feet a dozen paces behind the rearmost enemy warrior. A red smear across his forehead indicated that one of the defenders had clubbed him to the ground without taking the precaution of checking that the blow had been sufficient to put him out of the combat. He was pointing to something that was out of sight to Marcus around the inner wall’s curve, bellowing words that were inaudible over the battle’s cacophony of screams and curses. With a sudden flash of insight Marcus realised what he must be pointing at.

‘The next gate…’

He turned to Dubnus, pointing urgently past the seething mob of barbarians on the other side of their shield wall.

‘The second gate’s open! Give me ten men, quickly!’

He sheathed his spatha and tossed the shield aside, climbing nimbly up the rough wooden ladder that led on to the wall’s wooden fighting platform with a sudden burst of energy born of his realisation that the way to the heart of the fort had been left open behind the mass of warriors throwing themselves on to the Tungrians’ shields. Climbing on to the narrow platform, he looked out for a moment across the ridge, back to the legion cohorts waiting in the afternoon’s sunshine, their standards gleaming prettily in the sunlight. He waved down at the Syrian archers with the agreed crossed-fists gesture to indicate that the wall was taken, the signal to stop shooting at anything that moved along the wall’s length. The archers’ centurion waved back, barking to his men to stand down, and another man joined Marcus on the rampart, his face dimly remembered from his time commanding the 9th Century earlier that summer. Their eyes met, and as Marcus raised a hand to beckon him on down the wall in his wake a hot spray of the soldier’s blood stung his eyes. A heavy bolt had opened his throat with the precision of a surgeon’s scalpel, the man’s blood fountaining across Marcus’s mail armour as the soldier toppled choking back into space and fell on to the men fighting below them. Another bolt slammed into the timber an inch below the top of the wall, directly in line with Marcus’s stomach, and the third screamed past his head with a hand-span to spare and no more, burying itself in the rough timber of the second palisade. Another man climbed on to the wall, and Marcus recognised Scarface, a 9th Century soldier with little respect for the cohort’s officers.

‘Best keep you fuckin’ head down, Centurion, or those legion tosspots’ll put a dart clean through it.’

Marcus nodded, ducking below the rampart and beckoning the other man on.

‘Follow me!’

He scuttled off down the line of the rampart bent almost double, slipping and almost falling on a patch of still-wet blood, and looked back to make sure that the men who had climbed up after him were following. Thirty paces around the outer palisade’s curve from the point he had climbed up he dropped from the platform’s eight-foot elevation to land beside the massively muscled prisoner, drawing both swords as the man spoke in rough Latin, his voice a bass rumble.

‘Gate open. We close, they trap.’

Marcus nodded, beckoning his men to jump down.

‘What’s your name?’

The Briton spoke without taking his eyes from the open gate.

‘Lugos.’

‘Come with me, Lugos. I may need someone that speaks the language, and you’ll be safer with us than staying here. If this works you’ll be a free man by the end of this fight.’

The big barbarian nodded curtly, and Marcus led his small party along the curve of the inner palisade to the gate, still open despite the obvious risk to the fort’s security. Marcus peeped round its timber frame, seeing a cluster of a dozen warriors standing next to the much smaller opening in the fort’s third and last wall. He pulled his head back, speaking quickly to his men.

‘There’s only one more gate. It’s still open, and they’ve only left a few men to guard it. We’ve already captured this one, and if we can stop them closing that one we’ve got the fort at our mercy. Are you with me?’

The three 9th Century men who had followed him nodded readily, Scarface glaring round at his comrades in a way they knew only too well, while the three others, from other centuries and therefore less used to his way of doing things, stared back with a mixture of uncertainty and apprehension. It would have to do. The barbarian had acquired a spear from somewhere, and stared down at him without any visible expression.

‘Very well, gentlemen, let’s go and win ourselves a fort.’

He threw himself round the gate’s wooden frame and shouted a challenge at the warriors guarding the last gate, wanting them to see the small number of men charging along the wall at them with a single officer at their head. They dithered for a moment, caught between the need to deny the Romans the gate they were entrusted to guard and the opportunity to kill their enemy, and in that time his sprinting pace halved the distance between them. Glancing back, he saw that only the barbarian, his three former soldiers and one other man had joined him, but it was too late to do anything but face the enemy warriors, suddenly confident as they realised that they outnumbered their Roman attackers by two to one and came forward with their swords drawn.

Jinking to right and left, Marcus batted aside the leading warrior’s sword-thrust with the long blade of his spatha and hit the man hard with his right shoulder, punching him back into the men behind him and gaining a moment’s confusion in which his small group could gather their strength. Spinning away from the tangled knot of barbarians, he readied himself to take on another warrior, only to see Lugos leap at his intended victim with a blood-curdling howl, spitting him through the guts with a downward lunge of the spear he had found and leaving it buried deep in the man, taking the sword from his nerveless fingers. He raised the weapon over his head and hacked it down into another warrior’s unprotected head, his eyes bulging wide with the bloodlust. Marcus dragged his gaze from the spectacle in time to parry a sword-blow from his left with the gladius’ short blade, spinning to his right and chopping the spatha’s heavy blade through his attacker’s spine, severing the man’s head in a shower of gore. The headless corpse toppled stiffly backwards to the turf. The other Tungrian soldiers were in the fight now, crowding in behind Scarface’s lead, and the gate guards were abruptly on the defensive as they found their strength almost halved.

Marcus looked beyond them to the last gate, knowing that their unexpected run of luck could still end in stalemate if the men remaining inside managed to get it closed. The eight-foot timbers of the fort’s innermost palisade were more than stout enough to hold off the attackers for long enough for the remaining occupants to have time to make their escape over the walls on the fort’s far side, and down the steep slopes into the surrounding wild forest, whose secret paths only they knew.

‘Scarface, hold them! You…’

He pointed at the panting Lugos, hooking a thumb at the last gate.

‘… with me!’

The other man nodded, understanding the Roman officer’s purpose if not his words, and the pair burst past the knot of fighting men and ran hard for the gate. A single man hurried through the gap just as they reached it, drawn by the sounds of battle, and died on the barbarian’s sword without ever quite comprehending how badly the fort’s defence was undone, the slippery rope of his guts falling through his torn stomach wall as Lugos pushed him back against the timber rampart and lunged at him again, shoving the sword’s blade up into his chest to skewer his heart. Marcus burst through the gate and stopped, his swords held ready to fight as he took in the scene before him. A wide-open space crowned the hill’s crest, perhaps fifty paces in diameter and surrounded on all sides by the final wooden palisade. A single timber-built hall stood against the enclosure’s far wall, and the open space between gate and building was studded with smoking cooking pits and the scattered remnants of their last meal. A single warrior stood outside the hall, and as Marcus stood breathing heavily in the gateway he shouted something through the door behind him. A massively built warrior stalked through the doorway, a fighting axe held in one hand and a round shield in the other, the thick gold torc around his bull neck marking him as the tribe’s king. He stood for a moment, taking in the sudden reality of his defeat before setting off towards Marcus at a lumbering trot with his bodyguard running alongside him.

The centurion looked back at the gateway behind him, seeing that the prisoner was still the only man to have reached as far into the enemy’s defences. He stabbed his spatha’s long blade into the grass at his feet, pointing to the gate and chopping at the air with a bladed hand.

‘Destroy the gate!’

Even if he lost this last fight there would be troops following up soon enough, once the battle between the first and second walls was resolved, and the fort’s last gate had to be kept open if that were to mean anything. The barbarian nodded, taking the sword’s heavy blade to the uppermost of the gate’s wooden hinges in a flurry of blows, and Marcus pulled his spatha from the turf and turned back to find the fort’s chieftain and his companion less then ten paces distant. Pointing to the barbarian prisoner, the big man growled a command, locking his eyes on Marcus as his bodyguard trotted warily round the Roman officer and ran at the prisoner with his sword held high.

With a growl of anger the chieftain stepped in to attack the young centurion, hacking down at him with his axe, and the savage attack left Marcus with no option but to step back beyond the blade’s humming arc. Out of the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse as the man’s bodyguard and the barbarian prisoner fought in a whirl of blades, the two men almost perfectly matched in their skill and strength. The chieftain stepped forward and struck again, slashing the axe horizontally at Marcus’s belly in a backhanded blow that knocked aside his sword and connected solidly with his mail armour, sending him staggering backwards, winded by the blow’s force even though his mail had stopped the blade from penetrating. As he struggled for breath the big man whooped in triumph, raising his weapon for the killing blow that would split the Roman’s helmet and cleave his head apart, only to stagger and fall as an impact of unimaginable force dumped him on his back.

The artillery bolt had missed Marcus by inches before punching through the big man’s mail shirt and burying fully two-thirds of its length in his chest, a chance hit by a shot fired at random into the figures struggling in the gate’s skylined opening by some frustrated artilleryman on the far slope. The chieftain struggled to get back on his feet, making it no farther than one knee. He stared stupidly down at the bolt protruding from his body, feeling the strength ebbing from him with the blood coursing down his chest, then gave Marcus a beseeching look as he dropped the axe and shield, holding out his arms in readiness for a mercy stroke. The Roman looked into his eyes for a moment before nodding, and then dropped his gladius and wielded the spatha two-handed to sever the grievously wounded tribal leader’s head from his shoulders with an executioner’s stroke. The dead man’s bodyguard stopped fighting and stepped back from the exhausted prisoner, dropping his sword and prostrating himself on the ground. Gathering his strength, the barbarian lifted his sword, looking to Marcus for a decision. The centurion shook his head tiredly, pulling the big man out of the gate’s deadly opening before any more bolts could be sent their way, and sat down heavily on the turf, his body suddenly trembling as the relentless urge to fight burned out of his blood to leave him shivering in the afternoon’s warmth.

‘Let me make sure that I’ve fully understood this. Once the fort’s first gate was open you took half a dozen soldiers and charged off like a man with his arse on fire, ignoring your instructions to hold and let the legion cohorts come forward?’

First Spear Sextus Frontinius fixed Marcus with a fierce stare from behind his desk, raising an eyebrow in a silent invitation to comment.

‘Yes, First Spear.’

‘And as a consequence of disobeying your orders, you proceeded to secure both of the gates that the regulars were supposed to capture, once you’d made the initial break in and cleared the way for them?’

Marcus kept his face stony, only too well aware of the first spear’s swift temper. He shifted his stare from the wall of The Hill’s hospital, visible through the office’s open window, to the heavy gold torc sitting on the first spear’s desk. Frontinius caught the quick glance and his face hardened.

‘Never mind the jewellery, Centurion, just answer the question.’

‘Yes, First Spear.’

‘And to round things off nicely, you also engaged the tribal leader of the Carvetii in single combat?’

‘Yes, First Spear, although I should point out that I can’t…’

‘… take the credit for his death? Yes, I read the dispatch that Julius sent ahead of your return march so I’ve had a day to consider the implications of this latest feat of arms. He stopped a bolt in the middle of the fight. Has anyone got anything to add to this tale of disobeyed orders and glorious victory?’

Rufius spoke quickly, his tone light.

‘Yes, First Spear. You should have seen Legion Tribune Antonius’s face — he had a golden fortification crown all polished up and ready to hand over to whichever of his officers was first man over the fort’s last wall and he ended up having to put it away again, or else hand it over to an auxiliary cohort centurion.’

Marcus shook his head ruefully at the memory of the legion tribune’s amazement on hearing that the Tungrians had taken the hill fort in less than ten minutes, and with only a handful of casualties. On the other side of the desk from the four centurions standing to attention in front of him, still in their mail armour from the march back to The Hill, the first spear raised his eyes in amazement to the low ceiling of his office in the cohort’s headquarters before turning his glare on the subject of their discussion. Marcus kept his eyes fixed firmly on the view through the open window and his face expressionless.

‘You may well shake your bloody head, Centurion. Once again you present me with the ultimate conundrum, young man. Once again I’ve allowed you out into the countryside only to have you come back with your reputation enhanced and your profile raised. You’ve drawn more attention to yourself than either you or this cohort can bear. It’s a mystery to me that we’ve not all been nailed up months ago…’ He rubbed reflexively at his bald scalp, turning to Julius. ‘I know Tribune Antonius isn’t the sharpest officer you’ve ever served under, but surely even he could see that there’s something not quite right about a man so obviously Roman serving in an auxiliary cohort?’

His deputy shrugged.

‘In truth, First Spear, I think he was somewhat preoccupied with the fact that a pack of auxiliaries had whipped whatever glory there was to be had from stamping the remnants of the Carvetii flat out from under his nose.’

The first spear mused on the comment for a moment.

‘Yes. With a bit of luck he’ll have been too busy working out how he’s ever going to distinguish himself enough to get command of his own legion, and not looking too closely at you, Centurion Corvus. Very well, I’d better go and report to the prefect. You four can go and get ready to march to the coast tomorrow. We’ve had word that our replacements have arrived from Germania, so you’d best get over to Arab Town and get them before someone less deserving finds out they’ve arrived and has them away. And you, Corvus, can reflect on whether there’s any way that you could manage a simple march to the coast and back without taking on and defeating any more barbarian warbands. Dismissed.’

The four men saluted and trooped out of the office, heading for the officers’ mess. The oldest of them, a stocky veteran with iron-grey hair, put an arm around Marcus’s shoulders and ruffled his coal-black hair affectionately.

‘Not to worry, young Marcus, I was watching the wet-nosed aristocrat like a hawk and I’ll swear he never made the connection. Let’s go and get a drink, eh? You and I have new centuries to collect tomorrow, eighty big strong Tungrian boys apiece and an end to marching around alongside our old centuries while other men undo all our good work.’ He ducked away from Dubnus’s playful slap. ‘Current company excepted, of course.’

First Spear Frontinius made his way from the headquarters building to the prefect’s residence with a reflective look on his face, the heavy torc carried in one hand. The new prefect had been posted to take command of the cohort less than two weeks previously, a post made vacant by the promotion of their previous commanding officer to lead the 6th Legion earlier the same summer. The two men had hardly begun the gradual process of getting to know one another, so essential if they were to lead their cohort successfully once the fight with the rebels north of the wall was rejoined, and yet there was already something about the man that made him feel uncomfortable. Unlike his previous prefect, now the legatus of the imperial 6th Legion and privy to the secrets behind Centurion Corvus’s position with the cohort, Gaius Rutilius Scaurus had made no attempt to seek any sort of relationship with his first spear.

He nodded to the sentries standing guard on the residence and stepped into the building’s cool shade, waiting while the prefect’s taciturn German bodyguard went to fetch his master. After a moment’s delay his superior appeared at the door of his office. A tall man in his early thirties with a thin, almost ascetic face, he was dressed in a simple white tunic with the thin purple stripe on his left shoulder denoting that he was a member of the equestrian class. Scaurus’s eyes were a watery grey, their seemingly soft gaze set below black hair in a narrow face and with a chin that the first spear was unsure whether to characterise as aristocratic or simply weak, but his bearing was confident and his voice was cultured, almost urbane.

‘First Spear. Won’t you come and join me?’

Frontinius stepped into the prefect’s office, accepting a beaker of water and taking a seat opposite the prefect. The room was lit by a single lamp, its shadows pressing in on the two men. Prefect Scaurus took his seat on the other side of his desk, his face half lit by the lamp’s soft glow, and took a sip from his own beaker before speaking.

‘The detachment has returned, I hear. I presume that the job of dealing with the locals went well enough, since we don’t seem to be overrun with wounded?’

‘Yes, sir. We played our part as requested, broke into the fort and dealt with the defenders easily enough. Three dead and half a dozen wounded, none of them seriously enough to need transferring to Noisy Valley. Flesh wounds for the most part. The officers also managed to retrieve this…’ He put the heavy gold neck ring on the prefect’s desk, watching as the other man picked it up and inspected the finely worked bull’s heads that knobbed both ends of the torc. ‘… a nice donation to the burial club.’

The prefect put the torc back on the desk and nodded with satisfaction, but his next words instantly put the older man on his guard.

‘And centurion Corvus?’

‘Prefect?’

‘I said, “And Centurion Corvus?” By which, First Spear, I meant to ask you how your youngest officer performed during the defeat of the Carvetii.’

Frontinius shifted uncomfortably.

‘Centurion Corvus played a full part in the action…’

‘Despite only having gone along for the experience, eh? My man Arminius tells me that the rumour around the fort is that Corvus did in five hundred heartbeats what the legion cohorts might have toiled to achieve in five thousand, and with a good deal more losses, if the natives had managed to get their palisade gates closed. And that a certain legion tribune has had his nose put out of joint in a quite spectacular way by his inability to reward one of his own centurions for finishing off the campaign. Which would probably be just another war story for both of us, except that I’ve been reading the cohort’s war diary, First Spear Frontinius.’ He lapsed into silence for a moment, fixing Frontinius with a level gaze, his grey eyes unblinking in their scrutiny of his subordinate. ‘And in the record of this cohort’s war to date your man Corvus seems to have played a full part in just about everything that’s happened in the last six months. He must be quite the man with his colleagues, not to mention the troops.’

An uncomfortable silence played out for several seconds before the prefect spoke again. ‘As I read the story of your cohort’s actions early in the campaign I began to wonder two things, First Spear. I began to wonder just how one man could cause so much disruption to the enemy’s plans…’

‘He was commanding the scout century, Prefect, and so he was always going to…’

‘And more importantly, First Spear, I found myself wondering just how on earth he managed to avoid the eye of the succession of senior officers who must have heard of his exploits and decided that they wanted to know more about this remarkable young centurion of yours. I’m sure you can understand my pondering on these questions about this cohort of mine, given that it’s my responsibility to ensure its complete loyalty to the emperor.’

The first spear opened his mouth to reply, but found himself forestalled by the prefect’s raised hand.

‘Before you answer, First Spear Frontinius, I’ve got one more question that I’m pondering. And I would be very careful with your answer if you value your place here. Just why is it, I’m wondering, that I find myself commanding a cohort which has an officer who, as we speak, is still being hunted by the emperor’s secret police as a traitor to the throne?’

Frontinius sat in stunned silence for a moment, the prefect’s face darkening with his failure to reply.

‘Come on man, just how stupid do you think I am? The man’s obviously Roman. The name “Marcus Tribulus Corvus” shouts alias, and he’s blessed with skill and speed with arms that probably cost him ten years’ training with the best teachers. As it happens, I hear that the son of Senator Appius Valerius Aquila, a man of high position and reputation who was tortured and executed for treason earlier this year, is known to have spent most of his young life having fighting skills drilled into him by his father’s tame gladiators in preparation for service with the praetorians. He is known to have shipped out for Britannia on faked orders only weeks before his father’s death at the hands of the emperor’s investigators. And, First Spear, he is known to have vanished into thin air after two attempts to kill him, both of which ended with other men’s blood spilt, but not, apparently, that of their intended victim. This man Valerius

Aquila, who was more or less the age that your “Tribulus Corvus” appears to be, is believed to have benefited from the assistance of local troops, and the finger of suspicion was pointing squarely at the Sixth Legion’s former legatus until he was careless enough to leave both his legion’s eagle and his own head on the battlefield last spring. Perhaps Legatus Sollemnis was fortunate that his death was both quick and honourable…’

He paused, raking the first spear with a long, hard stare.

‘The man behind the throne, First Spear, remains convinced that the Aquila boy is sheltering with an army unit somewhere in northern Britannia. And if Praetorian Prefect Perennis ever lacked motivation to have him found and killed, the death of his own son in this province earlier this year, coupled with extraordinary rumours of the younger Perennis having been murdered while apparently executing an act of treason, will only have stiffened that resolve. The emperor’s ‘corn officers’ will be out in force across the northern frontier, with orders to kill not only the fugitive but the leaders of any military unit found sheltering him, and to exercise their discretion in further punishing the men of that unit. I think we both know that the dirty-jobs boys have never been backward when it comes to handing out summary justice, and I’d imagine that you for one would end up choking out your last breath on a cross, with every centurion in the cohort likely already dead in front of you. Your men would be decimated at the very least, and as for your previous prefect, now Legatus Equitius, I believe, well, I wouldn’t care to occupy his shoes either. So, First Spear, you’d better explain to me just why my cohort is sheltering an enemy of the empire, and why on earth I should tolerate the situation for a minute longer?

‘Start talking.’

The Hill’s officers’ mess steward was contentedly dozing off in his quiet corner when the door opened and a centurion stepped into the mess’s lamplight and looked about him, seeking out the steward. The newcomer was a grey-haired man with a stocky build, in late middle age to judge from his seamed face, and at first glance more likely to be a trader than a soldier, but the man behind the mess counter knew better.

‘Steward! Wine, four cups and make it something decent if you’ve any jars left fit for anything better than unstopping blocked arses. No doubt our brother officers have been throwing the stuff down their necks like Greek sailors while we’ve been away defending the cohort’s reputation.’

More officers were crowding the doorway behind him.

‘Shift your backside, Rufius, I’ve got a thirst that demands prompt service.’

Julius clapped a hand on Rufius’s shoulder and manoeuvred past him into the mess, dropping his cloak on to a table and stretching with genuine weariness. He was a head taller than the older man, his build both muscular and athletic while his grey-streaked heavy black beard reinforced the slightly piratical look of his face. Dubnus came through the door behind him, his physique if anything more magnificent, even if he looked less comfortable than his colleagues, still not quite at ease with his exalted status. Centurions, the steward knew from experience, were uncertain for their first few weeks with a vine stick in their hands, but very quickly never to be proved wrong in all the days that followed.

‘Come on, Dubnus, stop lurking, get in here and get your cloak off. You’re an officer now, so there’s no need to simper in the doorway like some bloody virgin invited to her first orgy.’

Dubnus favoured his brother officer with a dirty look and stepped inside, turning back to beckon Marcus in with a curiously deferential gesture as Rufius stepped up to the counter and slapped down a coin of a decent if not exceptional value.

‘If your wine is worthy of the name we’ll be drinking here all night and you, Steward, will earn this for keeping us well supplied. Come on, Marcus, let’s have you at the bar with your right arm ready for action.’

The steward nodded deferentially. This was the kind of officer he could cope with. Over the older man’s shoulder he watched the youngest man step into the lamplight. Gods, what a collection, he mused. Rufius, legion-trained and a seasoned blend of piss and vinegar; Julius, the supreme warrior in the prime of his fighting career, all muscles, scars and confidence; Dubnus, the former Chosen Man newly promoted into a dead man’s boots and still adapting to their fit; and the Roman, leaner than the others, lacking their obvious muscle but known to every man in the cohort by the respectful title ‘Two Knives’. The other three were all good enough centurions, respected and feared by their men in equal measure, but the Roman was the one officer in the fort that any man would follow into danger without ever needing an order.

Rufius passed a cup each to Julius and Dubnus, beckoning Marcus to join them.

‘Get a grip of one of these cups.’

Marcus fiddled for a moment with the pin holding his cloak together, and Rufius gave the heavy piece of jewellery a knowing look.

‘Still wearing that pin, eh? Don’t say I didn’t warn you if the bloody thing goes missing. Julius, let him through to the counter.’

Julius turned to look at the young centurion as he twisted the ornate badge to open its pin. He looked hard for a moment at the ornate replica of a round cavalry shield, decorated with an intricate engraving of Mars in full armour, sword raised to strike.

‘So that’s what the pair of you rode all that way to find. Very pretty…’

Rufius took the younger man’s cloak and tossed it on to the piled table.

‘It’s just about all he’s got to remind him of his father. There’s a personal inscription on the shield’s rear too, which makes it even more precious to him. That was all we could recover from the bundle we buried that morning Dubnus and I pulled his nuts out of the fire outside Yew Grove.’

The hulking young officer standing behind them laughed softly, his discomfort with the novelty of his status suddenly forgotten.

‘Dubnus and I? I seem to recall that all you did was wave your sword about while I had to throw myself around like a fortress whore on payday.’

Rufius grinned, poking his friend in the belly.

‘One well-favoured axe-throw from no more than spitting distance and the butchery of a defenceless horse and suddenly he’s One-Eyed Horatius. Anyway, the point is that when we dug up the bundle we buried back then that was all there was worth keeping… that and the lad’s last message from his father.’

Marcus shivered at the memory of opening the watertight dispatch rider’s message cylinder and reading a few lines from his father’s message from the grave into the cold dawn air a few days before.

‘By the time you reach Britannia, I expect that Commodus and his supporters will have laid formal charges of treason at our family’s door. I will have been tortured for information as to your whereabouts, then killed without ceremony or hearing… Whatever the ugly detail of their ending, our kindred will be taken and killed out of hand, our honour publicly denounced, and our line almost brought to an abrupt full stop. You are almost certainly all that remains of our blood…’

He shook himself free of the momentary introspection, raising the cup of wine to his friends.

‘And enough of that, there’s wine waiting. Let’s have a toast, gentlemen. Tungrian comrades, living and dead.’

‘Living and dead.’

They raised their cups and drank.

‘Here’s a toast for you.’

Julius raised his cup and looked around the small group with a wry smile.

‘I’ll drink to that moment at Lost Eagle when Uncle Sextus started humping that chieftain’s severed head in front of twenty thousand wild-eyed blue-noses. That was the moment I was sure I was going to die.’

They drank again. Rufius nudged Dubnus with his elbow.

‘Your turn, Centurion.’

After a moment’s silent thought the young officer raised his cup.

‘To Lucky, wherever he is now.’

Julius drank and laughed sharply.

‘Not so lucky after all. All those years with never a scratch only to get his hair parted by a blue-nose axe. His loss, your gain.’

The four men nodded silently, sharing a moment of memory. Marcus raised his cup to Rufius, a questioning look on his face.

‘And your toast, Grandfather?’

‘My toast…? I’ll raise my cup to those we loved who are no longer with us.’

The other men nodded, lifting their cups in silent salute, Rufius draining his and hammering it down on the long wooden bar with a smack of his lips.

‘A refill, Steward! We’ll be sitting over there by the stove. It might be late in the month of Junius, but it’s bloody cold for all that.’

‘It began, Prefect, back in the month of Februarius. One of my chosen men brought a young man in peasant clothing to the fort’s main gate…’

Frontinius told Prefect Scaurus the story of Marcus’s fight to gain a place with the cohort in swift and economical sentences, taking care not to exaggerate his recollection in any way. When his story was complete Scaurus sat in silence for a moment before speaking.

‘First Spear, you present me with a dilemma greater than any puzzle requiring a solution during my years of learning.’

A long silence hung in the air between them. Frontinius judged it best to keep his mouth shut as he waited for the prefect to resume what he expected to be a one-sided conversation.

‘It occurs to me that while I know what you have done, I do not yet understand why. So, First Spear Frontinius, help me understand your decision with regard to this fugitive from imperial justice. In your own time…’

The prefect rose from his chair and paced across the room, turning to look straight into his senior centurion’s eyes. Now his face was in shadow, unreadable, while the lamp behind him would show him any emotions crossing the first spear’s face. The first spear pondered his response for a moment before abandoning any thought of attempting to put any particular shine on the story.

‘You want to know why I agreed to allow a man wanted for treason to take sanctuary with the cohort. There is no one reason, but I’ll try to make why I did what I did clear for you. I suppose we can ignore the fact that both the man and his father were innocent of any of the charges laid against their family, although I’m convinced that was the case…’

Scaurus shrugged without interest.

‘It’s immaterial, First Spear. He could be as pure as a novice priestess and that would change nothing. My question wasn’t about his widely accepted guilt, I want to know why he’s here.’

Frontinius nodded.

‘Very well. In the first place it was my prefect, Septimius Equitius, who made the request of me, and he is a man whose judgement I had learned to trust during his time in command here. He owed a debt of honour to Sollemnis, the former legatus of Sixth Victorious. The legatus was the boy’s real father, and this was the way in which he was being asked to discharge that debt. And don’t mistake this for an attempt to shift the blame to Legatus Equitius. If there’s a hammer and nails in my future then I’ll do my own dying. However protracted the agony might be I can only cross the river once. All I’m trying to say is that there was a man’s honour involved in the decision.’

He paused for a moment, picking his next line of attack.

‘There was benefit to the cohort too. I exacted a price for Corvus’s acceptance from Legatus Sollemnis in addition to the large sum of money that he contributed to the burial fund. Corvus was accompanied here by a legion centurion not long retired, a legion cohort’s first spear, in fact, and I made his service here for a year part of the bargain.’ He chuckled darkly, unable to resist the humour in his memory of Tiberius Rufius’s smug smile once he had a vine stick back in his hand. ‘Turns out the man would have killed with his bare hands for the chance to bellow his lungs out at a century one more time…

‘There was one more reason for my decision, the most important of all. I would have given Prefect Equitius the hard word if I hadn’t seen something in the boy, and neither his honour, nor the gold, and not even the bonus centurion that sweetened the deal would have swayed me. I’m not stupid enough to go risking my life, and those of the officers I serve with, not without a good reason.

Scaurus shifted, staring hard into his eyes.

‘What reason?’

Frontinius stared back at him, his eyes flint hard in the half-light.

‘He’s a born soldier, Prefect, simply that, a born soldier. I’ve spent most of my adult life chasing recruits round these hills, teaching them how to take their iron to the barbarians that threaten their people. I’ve seen thousands of them, good, bad and indifferent, and I’ll tell you now, without hesitation, that he’s the most able warrior I’ve ever met, and the best leader to boot. He knows what to do, he does it without hesitation, and he’s faster and more skilled with a blade than any man I’ve met. The men of his former century would cover his arse with their shields even if it put them at risk of catching a spear themselves. Given a different roll of the dice he would have risen to command a legion without breaking sweat…’

He stopped, unable to read the prefect’s expression in the shadows.

‘You weren’t at the battle of Lost Eagle, Prefect, but if you had been you wouldn’t be asking me to explain my decision. When you get the chance to see him fight, then you’ll know what I mean when I tell you that you’ll never see a man throw his iron around with so much grace, or so much purpose.’

The prefect laughed quietly.

‘Very poetic.’

Frontinius shook his head dismissively.

‘Fuck poetry, that was simple fact. And now, Prefect, you’ve toyed with me for long enough. You’ve made your decision, now have the decency to tell me what it is. If you want me on a cross then that’s how I’ll depart this life. But I warn you, if you plan to nail him up then you’d better have something good up your sleeve because there’s at least one century of Tungrians that will paint the floor black with their own blood and that of anyone that gets in their way before they’ll stand still and watch that happen.’

Far to the north of the Roman wall whose stones he had so recently trodden as conqueror, in a forest clearing not unlike the one in which the war had been set in train a few short months before, Calgus, lord of the northern tribes, was arguing his corner against growing opposition. While only one of the tribal leaders dared to speak out against him, half a dozen other implacable faces were arrayed behind the old man, mirroring his grim obduracy. Calgus shook his head and scowled at the old man, raising his hands and eyes to the skies as if to seek guidance from their gods.

‘No, Brennus. We have not lost this war. In fact this war has barely begun, and yet already we have two mighty prizes to parade in front of our people.’

The king of the Votadini tribe leaned back tiredly in his chair, glaring back at Calgus from beneath the hood of a heavy cloak.

‘As you keep saying. My people are expected to be happy with the head of a dead Roman officer and a meaningless metal bird on a stick when what they really need is their dead menfolk back. That, and an end to the killing. Can you magic forth either of those things from your bird on a stick, Calgus? At least we had peace with the Romans before this war, unlike your troublesome Selgovae. There were no forts on our territory before this revolt, whereas your lands were already studded with their outposts. You argued for us to abandon our ties with the Romans when you had already long since soured your relationship with them, like a fox without a tail convincing its brothers to go without theirs.’

The old man looked around to his fellows, holding his hands out in apparent exasperation.

‘Now they will litter our territory with their soldiers in the way that they already control your tribe’s land. We will live under their control, no longer trusted to run our own affairs but instead jealously watched, and herded like the cattle we will become.’

The old king was pushing harder than Calgus had expected, encouraged by the knowledge that he had more than enough supporters around the grove to give Calgus’s bodyguards a decent fight, and made bold by the combination of his anger and apparent security. Calgus took a deep breath and started again.

‘They used to control our land, but not any more, King Brennus. You may recall that we burned out every fort on Selgovae ground in the first two days of our war with these usurpers. The Selgovae are newly freed from their oppressive presence on our land, and we will not lightly fall back under their domination. The prizes that we took in battle with the Romans will draw the northern tribes back to us. They are the symbols of an empire grown newly vulnerable. They tell us that the legions can be defeated, that we can be free again, they tell us that…’

The Votadini king laughed at him in shockingly open defiance, stiffening Calgus’s posture with astonished anger.

‘They tell us that we got lucky, Calgus. They tell us that you turned a Roman against his own, to lead a legion on to ground that made them helpless against our attack. We cannot expect such fortune again, if indeed I should call it fortune. We may have defeated a legion, but before the end of that day we were running like frightened children with two more legions on our heels, and their bloody cavalry. I lost a son to their spears, a son I will never see again thanks to this adventure of yours. A son whose head will have been taken by their soldiers to decorate some barrack or other…’

His nephew Martos, a scar-faced warrior with a fearsome reputation in battle, stared at Calgus from behind his uncle’s chair with a look of thinly veiled anger, a half-dozen of his men at his back. Brennus sat back in the chair, his eyes locked on Calgus’s, and with a flash of insight the Selgovae king knew that the challenge was coming. He strolled easily across the ground between them, looming over the old man and bending to speak quietly into his face. Martos and his men stiffened, ready to air their blades if Calgus as much as touched their leader.

‘Got a new champion, have you, old man? Could it be your sister’s boy that’s stood behind you, perhaps? Or will you do this the old-fashioned way and turn your men loose on mine, see who prevails, eh?’

Brennus looked him straight in the face, no sign of fear in his eyes.

‘There will be no challenge if you agree to make peace with the Romans. They have two full legions on our soil even now, they dominate the land around their destroyed forts on the north road as they start to rebuild them, and yet you claim to have broken their grip on us for ever. If we seek to offer them resistance those legions will roll over us and grind us into the ground we stand on.’ He shook his head at Calgus, then turned to the men behind him. ‘This rebellion is over! We’re back in the iron fist, but this time there’ll be no Roman tribute payment to soften the indignity of our lost sovereignty. The best we can hope for is to trade those cursed spoils of battle, and humble promises of peace and good behaviour, for some measure of normality. Until we do their legions will trample our land and people under foot, forever seeking revenge for their wounded pride.’

Calgus turned away, affecting to consider the suggestion. It was more than a suggestion, of course, more like an order from the leaders of the other tribes arrayed behind the old man, and an assured death sentence for him. If the tribes negotiated with Rome he knew that nothing less than his own head, alongside that of the Roman legatus currently sat in a jar of cedar oil in his tent, would satisfy their lust for revenge. Not unless they could take him alive, of course, for a lengthy humiliation and eventual ritual execution. He turned back to face the implacable faces with a slow secret smile.

‘So, it’s to be peace at the price of my head. If that’s how you all want it, I suppose I have little choice. And I’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that my sacrifice won’t be the only one you have to make.’

He stood and waited, watching a glimmer of understanding dawn on the old man’s face while the others around him frowned their incomprehension.

‘You have hostages?’

Calgus shook his head sadly.

‘Brennus, Brennus, what do you take me for? Of course I’ve taken hostages. Since you’re all culpable for our defeat, you can all pay the price for our surrender. If you betray me, you betray your closest family members.’ He pointed at each man in turn. ‘Your sons will never reach manhood. Your wife will never warm your bed again. Your daughters will never run to their father’s arms again. And, to be quite clear, they will all leave this life in slow, hard ways. I’ve sent the right men to make sure of that.’ He spread his arms wide, encompassing the gathering with a feral grin. ‘So, if you want to take my head for your would-be Roman friends, go ahead.’

He waited ten long seconds for anyone to move. ‘I thought not.’ He stepped close to the seated elder, a grim scowl replacing the smile. ‘In that case, let’s get back to business as usual, shall we? And in case any of you are tempted to put a sword in my back, I’ll warn you that if the men holding your family members don’t receive messages from me as expected, then you’ll be killing your loved ones just as if you’d put the knife to them yourselves.’

Brennus stared up at him with a look of horrified distaste.

‘Do you expect to rule us in this way for ever, Calgus?’

‘For ever, Brennus? Of course not! But I will keep you under control for long enough that we can finish the job we started. The Romans may have twenty thousand angry troops in the field, but they’re on unfamiliar ground in a land filled with hostile tribes, and the legions from the south and west can’t stay up here for ever. The first sniff of trouble in their own areas and the governor will have them away down the road to their fortresses, leaving the Sixth Legion and the auxiliaries to hold the line. I’ll have them bottled up behind their wall by the end of the summer, and then we’ll see if your people still want peace on Roman terms. I’ll chop our invaders up piece by piece, I’ll make them rue their desire to expand into our lands, and I will send them away with their tails between their legs. And you, Brennus, all of you fools, you should worry less about for ever and more about the next few days.’

Marcus was still discussing the next day’s march to Arab Town with his friends when the prefect’s orderly delivered a polite request for the centurion to join Prefect Scaurus and the first spear in his residence. He went back to his quarter, changed into a clean tunic and hurried up the hill just as the evening’s quiet gloom was finally surrendering to night, and the torches were being lit along the fort’s streets. Inside the building he was conducted to the prefect’s private rooms, where he was surprised to find Scaurus sitting opposite Frontinius, a sword unsheathed in his lap. At the room’s far end stood a foot-high statue, surrounded by a ring of small candles. It was a representation of a man in the act of stabbing a bull to death, his left hand pulling back the animal’s head while the other wielded the knife buried in its throat. The first spear nodded to the chair set facing the two men.

‘Take a seat, Centurion.’

He sat down with a questioning glance to both of the men, already pretty much sure of the reason for the summons. The prefect nodded a greeting, tapping the sword’s blade.

‘Forgive the impolite nature of this meeting, Marcus Valerius Aquila, but given the circumstances I decided that not to take the precaution would be foolhardy.’

Marcus nodded his understanding, keeping his eyes fixed on the prefect’s.

‘You’ll know why I’ve asked you to join us…?’

He nodded again.

‘You’ve uncovered my secret, Prefect, and you want to talk to me before you decide what to do with me.’

The senior officer raised an eyebrow.

‘You’re assuming that I haven’t already made that decision.’

‘Yes, sir, I am. If you’d already decided to have me arrested I would have found myself at the point of a sword without warning, my hands bound, and then thrown into the punishment cells for safe keeping. And if you’d already decided to ignore my situation I probably wouldn’t even be here, you’d be agreeing with the first spear the best way to keep me out of trouble. As it is you have a sword ready to use, which implies either mistrust of my potential actions or a lack of confidence in your own abilities. Or both.’

Scaurus laughed, flashing a glance at Frontinius.

‘Confident even in the face of execution, Valerius Aquila?’

‘I’ve lived with the prospect of an unjust death, like the one visited on my father, my mother, my brother, my sisters, my uncle and my cousins, for several months now. It’s hard to stay scared for that long, Prefect.’

He closed his mouth and waited for the prefect to speak. Scaurus looked into his eyes for a moment, then shrugged slightly and continued.

‘Like you, I was born and raised in Rome. Unlike you, although I am the son of an old and respected line, I was not born to a wealthy family. Our clan fell on hard times during the Year of the Four Emperors. My ancestor was unlucky enough to back the wrong man a hundred years ago, and the Emperor Vespasian made him pay for it with enough severity that for a while it was touch and go as to whether the family name would survive at all. We’ve managed to rub along well enough since then, but we’ve never been sufficiently well connected to amount to very much beyond the usual imperial service, a rather shabby existence for a family that can trace its line almost seven hundred years, back to the overthrow of the last king of the city. My mother died in childbirth, and my father was killed serving on the German frontier when I was young, and so I found myself living with my uncle’s family, essentially a burden to them and, if not resented, hardly welcomed with open arms. It was inevitable that I would seek a means of escape from their charity, and I found it in the patronage of a man of great power.’

He paused, a half-smile playing on his lips as he surveyed the listening men.

‘And now you’re wondering in just what way I prostituted myself to make that connection. Exactly what was it I had to offer an older man that would make him take me into his house and treat me like a son? What did I give him in return for the status and favour that he bestowed on me?’ He laughed harshly. ‘I’ve lived with the sideways glances and innuendos for half of my life now, but in point of fact my benefactor simply took a chance on me. He plucked me from a life destined to disappoint everyone involved, not least me, and he raised my face to see the heights to which I might climb. He did this because he saw something in my wildness that he believed was worth his time and effort to bring to fruition. He looked into the eyes of a disaffected youth and saw a warrior waiting to be released.’

He stood, raising the sword to point at the complex statue standing amid its ring of tiny bright flames.

‘He made one small change to my life, almost insignificant compared to what you’ve been through, Valerius Aquila, but just as deep in its impact as the traumas you’ve endured. He brought me to the worship of the god Mithras, the Unconquered Sun, the soldier’s true god, and in doing so he gave me the purpose I was lacking. I won’t bore you with the changes that my service to Mithras has wrought on my life, but I will tell you this — his decision to take the chance that I could be rehabilitated led me to the path I still follow, a life of service to Mithras and the warrior code followed by my sponsor and his brothers. Men who became, through my service to the god, my brothers too.’

He stared at the statue for a long moment before continuing.

‘Don’t underestimate Mithras, either of you. I have been in more than one tight situation, with weaker men around me reduced to little better than panic, including some that were appointed to lead their fellow men into battle, and my faith in him has kept my sword hand steady, and ready to exploit the opportunities that he always provides.’

He turned, pointing the sword’s long blade directly at Marcus.

‘I can see in you the same restless purpose that I felt fifteen years ago, and which my sponsor chose to harness in the service of our god. You can do great things, Valerius Aquila, or you can continue with your current path and eventually be discovered and put to death alongside those you have come to regard as your brothers. Every day that you remain here is another toss of the coin, another chance for the emperor’s head to land face down and destroy everything you hold dear. I have a choice for you to make, between service to a noble god in the pursuit of the soldier’s ideal and hanging on here until the day that your hiding place is discovered.’

He paused for a moment, raising an eyebrow at the younger man.

‘You offer to… protect me, Prefect?’

The prefect smiled, his teeth a white flash in the gloom.

‘I offer you rather more than that, Valerius Aquila. I offer you friendship, a kind of kinship if you like. I can never replace your family, but I can give you something to which you can belong without forever endangering it simply by your presence.’

‘And as the price for this bargain you will take me from this place and these people?’

‘When the time is right, you will leave here.’

Marcus frowned slightly.

‘There is a lady…’

Scaurus nodded.

‘I know. First Spear Frontinius enlightened me on that subject. And when the time is right she can accompany you to wherever you travel, if she will. Mithras wants your service, for you to live the life of a warrior, not for you to cut yourself off from the world. There is room in your life for both your god and your woman.’

Marcus nodded slowly, his face creased in thought.

‘It is a generous offer, Prefect Scaurus, although I still wonder exactly how you can protect me from the empire’s hunters.’

Scaurus smiled tightly.

‘So do I, given your apparent talent for drawing attention to yourself. In time you will come to better understand both the forces hunting you and those arraigned behind me, but for the time being it will be enough for you simply to trust me. So, your decision?’

Marcus thought for a long moment, staring into the room’s shadows.

‘I will do as you bid, Prefect. I will follow you as you command, and I will serve your god to the best of my ability.’

Scaurus nodded decisively.

‘Good. Perhaps in this way we’ll be able to keep you from the throne’s hunting dogs, and avoid the danger of your friends and comrades being taken down alongside you. Quite how we are to keep you out of public scrutiny in the meantime is a different question altogether.’