Arrows of Fury

11

The Tungrian cohorts marched into Noisy Valley behind the Petriana cavalry wing late the next day, having slogged back down the north road that afternoon. The surviving wounded had been carried on the carts that usually mounted the cohorts’ tents and cooking equipment, the dead left for burial by the soldiers of the 6th and 20th Legions. Scaurus had received his orders from the governor in the quiet of the man’s command tent the previous night, once the Legions had set up camp for the night beside the now quiescent Red River.

‘You’ve done a good job here, Prefect Scaurus, saved us from being ambushed by those ugly tattooed buggers. How many men did you lose?’

Scaurus made a show of consulting his tablet, although in truth the numbers, and their significance, were already burned into his brain.

‘Seventy-three men dead and a hundred and twenty-one wounded, seventy-six of them walking. The medics expect another dozen of the wounded to die before sunrise.’

The governor waited for a long moment.

‘And the Second Cohort…?’

‘Thirteen dead and twenty-five wounded, sir. Only one of their centuries actually saw any real combat.’

The tone of the governor’s reply made clear the frustration that was taking hold of his superior officer.

‘I know. I also know that a makeshift century composed mainly of Arab archers took more than double that number of casualties in the same action and still managed to frustrate an attempt by the Venicones to get over the river. I had Legatus Equitius make discreet enquiries of your first spear, and you’ll be aware of the mutual esteem in which your centurions and their former commander hold each other. Not to mention the off-the-record comments I’ve had from Tribune Licinius after his debriefing of his message riders. It seems you were forced to take control of his cohort for fear that he would panic and scare his men into running?’

‘Governor, I must…’

‘No. I think not, Rutilius Scaurus. I knew you would try to protect that fool Furius, just as you did ten years ago when he panicked in battle against the Quadi, although for the life of me the reason for your doing so still eludes me.’

Scaurus squared his shoulders.

‘I will not condemn a fellow officer, sir, no matter how great the provocation.’

The governor snorted his amusement.

‘Perhaps you won’t, but your fellow officer seems to be carved from less noble material. He was in here not fifteen minutes ago protesting at your behaviour today in the most graphic terms. Apparently I would be well advised to have you relieved of command and sent back to Rome. It would also seem that his father wields great power in Rome… although I’d say he’s mistaking affluence for influence.’

He sniffed dismissively, taking a seat while Scaurus maintained his stiff posture. His next comment was made offhandedly, in an almost dismissive tone, but if the comment was made lightly enough, the words themselves rooted the younger man to the spot.

‘He was also spouting some nonsense about your cohort playing host to a fugitive from imperial justice… He showed me a piece of jewellery, a gold cloak pin with an inscription of some kind. “Irrefutable proof,” he said, but by then my patience with the man was exhausted so I threw him out. It is nonsense, I presume?’

The prefect raised an eyebrow with an apparent lack of concern that he was a long way from feeling.

‘Yes, Governor, Prefect Furius has taken it into his head that one of my officers is this man Valerius Aquila that went missing a few months ago.’

‘Whereas…?’

‘Whereas, Governor, as both Legatus Equitius and Tribune Licinius will stand witness, my man’s simply a patriotic son of Rome doing his duty for the empire, nothing more and nothing less. It seems that every young officer with dark hair and brown eyes on the frontier should now be considered as suspicious.’

Ulpius Marcellus gave him a hard stare, then nodded his agreement.

‘If Licinius will back the man that’s good enough for me, he’s got no axe to grind. And nothing that fool Furius says can be treated with any sort of respect. He would keep insisting that I dismiss you from the service…’

Scaurus shrugged, keeping his face expressionless.

‘In this, as in every other matter, sir, I am your faithful servant. If you deem it fit to send me away from here I will accept your judgement.’

The governor snorted again, slapping a hand down on the table in front of him.

‘Not likely, young man! Your cohort has surprised and then held off two Venico warbands, only for that self-serving fool to tell me that I ought to cashier you? No, Rutilius Scaurus, you are to take your wounded south to Noisy Valley using the legions’ supply wagons, get your men into the hospital, re-equip with whatever you need from the legion stores and then pick up a full load of food and get yourselves back here before dark in two days’ time, no more. I’ll use the legions’ cavalry and the auxiliary horse to keep the barbarians’ necks tucked in, and we’ll attack their stronghold once we’re properly positioned. I want your men back in the line before that happens, they’re too experienced to sit out such a fight and I’ve got a particular part of the battle plan in mind for them.’

Scaurus saluted and turned away, his mind already racing around the challenge of getting his wounded across the difficult early stages of the twenty-mile march to Noisy Valley.

‘One more thing, Rutilius Scaurus.’

The prefect turned back from the tent’s door to find the governor on his feet and holding out a sealed tablet.

‘I’m sending Licinius and the Petriana with you. They can make sure you make it back down the north road without being harassed, and provide a show of force to keep the Brigantes quiet. When you get to Noisy Valley hand this tablet to Licinius. He’ll know what to do.’

With the Tungrians settled into the Noisy Valley barracks previously occupied by the 6th Legion, Scaurus sent his officers to organise the loading of the supply carts, and his bandage carriers to the hospital to offer any help that might be required by the hard-pressed medical staff. With no more commands to issue he sought out Tribune Licinius, finding him in the officers’ mess with a beaker of wine in front of him. The grizzled senior officer stood and shook the younger man’s hand, calling for more wine.

‘Well, Cohort Prefect Scaurus, I was hoping to get a moment or two with you. You Tungrian buggers don’t seem to be able to stay out of trouble, but then y’don’t seem to have much of a problem fighting your way out of it either, eh? I salute you!’

He lifted his beaker, taking a slug of the wine, and watched Scaurus as he sipped his own drink.

‘Something wrong, eh, young ’un?’

Scaurus placed the governor’s tablet, still sealed, gently on the table in front of him, the writing block’s polished case making a soft click as it made contact with the scarred wooden surface.

‘There may well be, Tribune. This is a message from…’

‘… the governor. I can recognise his seal, y’know.’ He split the wax seal with a thumbnail, reading the contents of the tablet with an expressionless face. ‘That old bastard doesn’t muck about when he wants dirty work doing. You have no idea what’s in this message?’

Scaurus shrugged.

‘I have a good enough idea who it concerns, but no idea as to the precise contents.’

Licinius leaned across the table, putting out his hand.

‘Well, it seems that congratulations are in order, young man. You’re provisionally promoted to cohort tribune, with command of the combined First and Second Tungrian cohorts. I can’t make any promises on Ulpius Marcellus’s behalf, of course, but we both know that the rank is rarely rescinded once granted. Well done, young man.’

Scaurus stared back at him disbelievingly.

‘But…’

‘No, there’s no mention of any “buts” in this message. The governor stresses that you are directed to assume command of the Second Cohort immediately.’

‘And Furius?’

Licinius smiled evenly, reaching for his helmet.

‘Former Prefect Furius is to be relieved of his command and shipped out to Rome as quickly as the act can be made to happen. Sounds like the governor has about the same opinion of your colleague that I do, given the dismal tactical skill and military acumen he’s displayed to date, not to mention his apparent lack of anything remotely resembling a set of balls. We’re better off without him, and you’ll have a nice big double-strength cohort to play with.’ He got to his feet, heading for the door, but turned back after a couple of strides. ‘Oh yes, and why not give what’s left of your archers to the Hamian cohort while you’re here, there’s a good lad? That energetic young centurion of yours has managed to get half of them killed in less than a month, so I think the rest of them have earned some time off for good behaviour, don’t you?’

In the base hospital a disciplined chaos ruled, half a dozen of Felicia’s assistants working to put the surviving Tungrian wounded on to the doctor’s table in something like the order of their medical priority. Marcus and Rufius found Dubnus dozing uneasily through the racket, his face pale from the blood he’d lost the previous day.

‘He looks dreadful. Why haven’t they dealt with him yet?’

Rufius waved an arm at the room in response to his friend’s question.

‘Look around you. Every man that goes on to the table before him has a worse wound.’

As they watched a soldier was carried from the surgery on a stretcher, his right leg swathed in bandages down to the knee, below which the remainder of the limb was missing.

‘See, that poor bastard’s lost his leg. Dubnus has it comparatively easy by comparison.’

‘Easy… you come and lie here for a few minutes and then tell me this is easy…’

They turned back to find Dubnus lying with his eyes barely open. He closed them again after a moment, the effort clearly tiring him.

‘I feel like I’ve been beaten with hammers.’

Rufius lifted a bottle of water to his lips.

‘Drink some of this. You’ll be in surgery soon enough. Get that wound cleaned out and stitched, and soon enough you’ll be scaring the shit out of the recruits like a new man. Can you remember what happened?’

The young centurion snorted, then winced at the pain that the action caused.

‘Of course I bloody can. I got a spear in the guts, not through my head. Some big bastard with an axe set about the front rank, killed three men in the time it takes to tell it, and I was stupid enough to jump in to deal with him…’

He paused, grasping the water bottle and taking another sip.

‘He swung at me and buried his axe in my shield… actually put the blade’s edge right through my board, and while he was trying to pull it free I gutted the fucker.’

‘Keeping your attention on the men to either side, of course…?’

Dubnus sighed.

‘As a matter of fact, you superior old bastard, yes, I was. What I wasn’t looking out for was a spear-thrust from behind their front rankers. The bastard must have taken a running jump at me; the blade ripped straight through my armour and skewered me like a piece of liver. I went down like a sack of shit with the whole warband baying for my head, but the rear rank managed to pull me out of the fight while good old Cyclops closed the gap and kept them off me. Remind me to buy that bad-tempered sod a beer next time I see him…’

Rufius nodded sagely.

‘I’d say you owe him a good deal more than that. Let’s have a look at your wound, then.’

He lifted the sheet to reveal Dubnus’s stomach. The wound was a four-inch-long gash, its edges a livid purple and joined by a crust of dried blood.

‘Not too bad. Of course, the first thing that our friend’s wife-to-be is going to have to do to you is open that up again and make sure it’s clean. I wonder if she’ll let us watch?’

Licinius found Furius in his temporary quarters with a terracotta flask of wine. The younger man rose and greeted him, lifting the wine in salute.

‘Tribune Licinius, welcome. Join me in a beaker or two of wine, to celebrate our escape from certain death yesterday…’

His smile faded as he realised that the senior officer hadn’t moved from his place in the barrack’s entrance, his stance formal and a writing tablet held open in one hand.

‘Cohort Prefect Gracilus Furius, I am hereby ordered by Governor Ulpius Marcellus to direct that you relinquish your command with immediate effect. I suggest that you accompany me to the commander’s residence. You can stay the night there, and avoid all the awkwardness that goes with sudden changes of command…’

The wine flask dropped from Furius’s hand and cracked on the wooden floor, his fingers suddenly numb with the shock. The wine trickled out across the floorboards unnoticed by either man.

‘There must be some…’

‘There’s no mistake…’ Licinius’s tone was gentle; he knew the enormity of the blow being dealt to the other man. ‘I can assure you that the governor is very specific in his instructions.’

‘But this simply cannot be. If anyone should be relieved of command it’s that jumped-up puppy Scaurus, not me. He…’

The grim look on Licinius’s face as he advanced across the room silenced him.

‘Citizen Furius, you were, to be brutally honest, quite the worst commanding officer I’ve met in several years of service in this province. You are a coward, which I’m told you’ve proved on more than one occasion, but worse than that you lack any real aptitude for the command of soldiers in the field. If you leave with me now, quietly and without making a drama out of your departure, you can at least go home with some dignity. The governor will send you home with the next set of dispatches to the emperor, and you can tell your friends that you took part in a battle with a fearsome tribe from the far north. Tell them it was a great victory and that you were sent home to report on it as a mark of favour. If you kick up a fuss, however, the story will get home long before you do. You don’t want that to happen, and neither will your father. Keep the family name proud, eh? Don’t embarrass the old man any more than you probably already have. Come on, I’ll have your gear sorted out and brought over later.’

Furius stared at the senior officer for a moment, the fight going out of him as he sensed the deep anger underlying the older man’s gentle tones in the hard lines of his face.

‘I’ll come with you. It wouldn’t do to make a scene…’

They walked from the tent and into the cool evening air, the sentry snapping to attention and saluting. Licinius nodded to the man, but Furius was lost in a world of his own, his downcast face a study in misery. The sentry waited until the two men were out of sight then whistled to his mate, walking a patrol beat along the line of barracks.

‘Crucifix Boy just left with that old bugger from the cavalry, and he wasn’t looking happy. Best tip the wink to the first spear…’

As he crossed the fort a pace behind Licinius, a thought occurred to Furius, a sudden shocking idea that wormed its way into his mind and sat festering for all of ten seconds before he blurted it out, his tone both aggressive and fearful.

‘It occurs to me, Tribune Licinius, that there are only two options for my immediate replacement. Either you’ll put a man of your own choosing into my place, or else…’ He looked at the man walking slightly ahead of him, finding his face imperturbable. ‘… or else my former colleague Scaurus will command both his own cohort and mine. Which is it, Tribune?’

Licinius stopped walking and turned to face him, his features skull-like in the fort’s deep shadows. His voice was harsher than before, as if he were holding on to some last vestige of patience.

‘Leave it alone, Furius. Let go of this failed attempt to regain a life to which you’re not suited, and turn back to that which you can manage.’

Furius put a hand to his head, staring up at the stars in genuine amazement.

‘So I am removed from my command and replaced by him. By him! Zeus, Jupiter and Mars, but I’ll see someone damned for this indignity. My father will…’

He quailed back against a barrack’s wooden wall as Licinius took a handful of his tunic and twisted it harshly.

‘Your father? You think the influence of a moderately successful merchant will be enough to protect you while you spread your poison round Rome. You bloody fool, do you have any idea who Cohort Tribune Scaurus’s sponsor is?’

He waited for a moment until Furius shook his head.

‘I had assumed from his slow progression…’

‘… that he was without patronage? Well then, how does this name suit you?’

He leant in close to the wide-eyed Furius and whispered a single word in his ear.

‘No.’

‘Oh yes, you heard me correctly. I heard your father had to pay a small fortune to get you back into legion service, to find a legatus willing to overlook your reputation from the last time you were allowed into uniform. And even then you lasted only a matter of months before you gave him the excuse he was waiting for to ship you on to another province, once he realised just what a liability you were. All those years that you sat on your arse at home, whoring, drinking and waiting for Daddy to buy you another chance, your colleague Scaurus concentrated on building up his military skills the hard way. His backer could snap your family’s power with a crook of his little finger, but Scaurus was never willing to take advantage of that influence, quite the opposite, as it happens. He loved the joy of commanding men in battle far too much to consider promotion away from the sharp end of the spear, and so for years he was content to be a legion tribune. He might have frustrated his sponsor in the process, but the man recognised his quality and never stopped backing him, and I’ll warn you just this once, you’ll spread evil gossip about the man at your peril. Just a few quiet words in the right ear and you’ll find yourself robbed, buggered and murdered in some Roman back alley. I advise you to accept your lot and get on with the rest of your life.’

Furius nodded slowly, his eyes fixed on the older man’s. Licinius relaxed, judging that his words had beaten the last resistance from the man.

‘Come on, then, let’s get you into the residence and away from prying eyes.’

In the hospital, Felicia’s assessment of Dubnus’s condition was delivered to his friends in a quiet, tired voice as she leant across the big centurion to look closely at his wound, taking a slow long breath in through her nose with her face close to the blood-crusted gash.

‘A spear, yes? Good, the wound won’t be too deep, then. It looks like his mail did its job and took most of the force of the blow. And there’s no smell of infection, that’s a good sign. Now we can do this one of two ways, Centurion. I can dose you with something to make you sleepy, or we can just get it over with now. It will hurt either way, but with the tincture the unpleasantness will seem to have happened in a dream, whereas you’ll know every second of the pain without it.’

Dubnus closed his eyes with exhaustion, shaking his head slowly.

‘I already feel like a dead man, lady, so let’s get this done and over with.’

The doctor nodded to her assistants.

‘Strap his legs down well. I’ll need the small-wound forceps, vinegar, clean linen swabs and a small drain tube. Oh yes, and the honeycomb. And you two gentlemen…’ She smiled wanly at the waiting centurions. ‘… can help me by putting down those helmets and sticks and coming over here to hold his arms. Once we get the wound open he’s going to be in more pain than when the blade went in.’

By the time Julius arrived an hour later Dubnus was sleeping exhaustedly in his bed, his stomach heavily bandaged and a tiny bronze tube protruding from the wrappings.

‘He’ll live, I presume?’

Rufius nodded tiredly.

‘He will, if our colleague’s woman has anything to do with it. I’ve not seen a wound cleaned out with such care for many a year, nor a man take such torture without even a grunt.’

Julius nodded, knowing from grim experience what his comrade had been through.

‘I did a bloody sight more than grunt when they cleaned mine out. It’s packed with the honeycomb, I presume?’

Rufius nodded, raising his hands.

‘Crushed it myself…’

‘So he should be fine. That’s a relief…’

Marcus and Rufius exchanged glances.

‘What?’

‘It’s probably nothing…’

‘But…? Come on, Centurion Corvus, I’m a big boy, I can take bad news.’

Marcus frowned.

‘Fel… the doctor told us that there’s some damage to his liver, just a nick, but there’s no way of telling what might have been on the blade that creased him. We’ll just have to wait and see.’

Julius took a deep breath, shaking his head slowly.

‘And so it goes… Very well, gentlemen, orders from the first spear. We’re to get a beaker of wine down our necks, get to bed and be ready to march again at dawn. We go north again at first light, and he wants us as fresh as possible, not bleary from a night spent watching a wounded man sleep off his surgery. Two Knives, take a moment to say hello to your woman properly and then join us in the officers’ mess for a quick one. You’ll sleep better with a beaker of half-decent wine under your ribs.’

Marcus nodded agreement, tapping fists with both men and making his way cautiously to the surgery door. Felicia, bent over another patient, sniffing for decay, caught his eye as he put his head around the door frame and smiled, standing up from the patient and nodding.

‘Clean enough, if my nose isn’t getting tired from all this practice. Let’s make this the last one tonight, there’s nothing out there that won’t wait until I’ve had a few hours’ sleep. Get him ready for cleaning out, please.’

She walked to the door, and pushed Marcus into the ward, wrapping her arms around him, muttering tiredly into his chest.

‘How long have you got in camp?’

He snorted into her hair, laughing despite himself.

‘About six hours. We’re going back north at dawn.’

She pushed herself away from him, holding him out at arms’ length and looking critically at his black-ringed eyes.

‘You were in action yesterday. From the look of it you were right in the middle of it, as usual…’

His eyes were suddenly misty, the gentle challenge breaking down defences that he’d thought secure against the emotions surging around them.

‘We fought off a warband from the far north. My archers fought better than I could ever have imagined… but I lost so many of them. And Antenoch…’

A tear escaped from his right eye, rolling down his cheek and falling on to his armoured chest. Felicia pulled his head on to her shoulder, holding him close again and biting her lip to suppress her own tears.

‘My love. My poor, poor love. They were soldiers…’

Marcus pulled away a little and tried to speak, but she put a finger to his lips, shaking her head.

‘No! No guilt. They may not have been fighting men to match your Tungrians, but they were still soldiers. They knew what they were volunteering for. And as for your clerk…’

‘He died saving the boy’s life. I was too late to do anything other than butcher the men that killed him. Perhaps that’s all I’m good for…’

‘Rubbish!’ Her voice hardened, and she took a grip of his mail shirt’s collar and dragged him close again, whispering vehemently in his face. ‘You’re a fine officer and a good man, and I love you. So pull yourself together, go and get some sleep and come back to me in one piece when this is all over. I want a live husband, not a dead hero, so keep your wits about you!’

He smiled wanly and kissed her gently, squeezing her to him for a moment. Disengaging and moving towards the surgery door, she turned back, a wry smile on her face.

‘And if you want a way to remember your clerk that doesn’t involve yesterday, just remember all the times he drove you to the point of tearing your hair out.’

He smiled back at her, his mood lifted by the thought of better days.

‘I threw a copy of Commentaries on the Gallic War at his head in the hospital at Cauldron Fort.’

‘I know, he told me. I think he was rather proud of the achievement… Now, away with you. I’ve got a patient to deal with, and my records to scribble out before I forget what to write.’

Marcus gathered up his helmet and followed her to the door, his mind already fixed on the thought of a few hours’ sleep and the next day’s march.

Furius drained the last of the wine that had been left for him and lifted the flask, shaking it to ensure that no drop remained within.

‘Empty. Bastards couldn’t even leave me enough wine to put me to sleep.’

Rising from the chair in which he’d been sitting since Licinius had left him in the residence’s comfortable main bedroom, with the command to get some sleep, the disgruntled ex-officer shambled off into the house in search of more wine. Finding nothing to drink in any of the rooms, he pulled his boots back on and went to the front door, opening it cautiously to peer into the fort’s empty street. A pair of the Petriana’s cavalrymen turned to face him, their faces stony with dispassionate disapproval and their spears crossed to bar him from exiting the residence. Closing the door, he retreated to the kitchen, searching until he found a suitably heavy bladed cooking knife. Back in the bedroom, at the building’s rear, he got to work on the locked wooden catch that secured the window’s shutter, prying it away from the frame until the wood splintered and broke, allowing the shutter to open.

Blowing out the lamp that was the room’s only illumination, he eased the shutter open a crack and looked cautiously through the thin slit. The street between the residence and the fort’s defensive wall was quiet, and he was about to open the shutter properly and climb through it when a helmeted soldier appeared in his restricted field of view, having passed by the window without noticing that it was ajar. He waited until the guard had turned the corner and then eased himself noiselessly to the ground and pushed the shutter closed again, hurrying to the corner of the residence around which the guard had disappeared. Peeping round the brickwork in trepidation, fearing that the man might have reversed his steps and be advancing towards him, he saw to his relief that the sentry was just turning the next corner, clearly walking a simple path around the residence. He had a couple of minutes before the soldier could cover the other two sides of the building and come up behind him. Taking a moment to calm his breathing, he took the only course of action open to him, walking boldly across the road and into the cover of the barrack block facing the residence, waiting for the sounds of pursuit. None came. If the guards watching the building’s front door for Licinius had spotted him, they had failed to connect the apparently confident figure crossing the street with the man held captive within.

He moved quickly now, sticking to the shadows and heading for the barrack block in which his temporary quarters were located. The patrolling Tungrian guard coughed in the cold evening air, standing in his position at the far end of the block. There was no sign of the man who would normally be posted in front of the prefect’s rooms.

‘No need, given my new status…’

Finding what he believed to be the right door, he opened it and stepped inside with light feet, not sure whether there would be a guard placed inside, but the room was empty. His sword and dagger were lying on the bed alongside his other effects, and he picked them up, strapping the belt and baldric over his tunic. Stepping over to the window, he cautiously peered through the shutters at the hospital opposite. A group of four orderlies came out of the building, the sleeves of their tunics spattered black where their aprons had failed to provide protection from the blood of the wounded men they had been treating throughout the evening. They headed off towards the main gates, and the fort’s vicus.

‘Off to the beer shop, are we, gentlemen? Who does that leave minding the patients while you’re wetting your whistles? I wonder.’

He searched down the building’s row of windows until he found what he’d been hoping for.

‘Oh yes, that would make a very acceptable reward for refusing to go quietly.’

In the officers’ mess, crowded with the presence of the centurions of both infantry cohorts and the Petriana’s decurions, First Spear Frontinius was enjoying a rare moment of leisure with his men. The Votadini prince Martos stood among them self-consciously with his drinking horn held in one hand. He had sought to avoid the invitation at first, but Frontinius had refused to take no for an answer.

‘You pulled our backsides out of the fire yesterday, and as far as we’re concerned you’re a brother now, no matter what happened before or might happen in the future. Besides, if you refuse I’m pretty sure that the Bear will just come down here and carry you over to the mess, so why not make it easy on yourself?’

Frontinius lifted his beaker, and the cohort’s centurions gathered more tightly around their leader to hear his toast. His voice rung around the room in the sudden hush, as all three groups of officers strained to hear the words.

‘Brothers, we drink to the Venicones. May they long remember the day that two cohorts of Tungrians repelled ten thousand of the bastards…’ He lowered his voice theatrically, knowing that he had the whole room’s attention. ‘… with a little help from Jupiter, sender of rain…’ He raised his voice to shout out the last few words of the toast. ‘… and an honourable mention for the Red River!’

A cheer rang out, every man in the room lifting his drink in salute. Frontinius turned to Julius with a raised eyebrow.

‘Dubnus?’

‘Should be fine, if a small nick to his liver heals clean.’ He raised his beaker to Martos, speaking in quiet tones that would be heard only by the tight knot of men standing around him. ‘To you, Martos, and your warriors. Without you our brother Dubnus would be dead now, and likely most of the rest of us too.’

The Briton nodded acknowledgement of the honour as the officers raised their cups, taking a draught of beer from the drinking horn.

‘You may yet have to return the favour, Centurion, but I thank you for your kind words. Here’s my toast, if I may…?’ Frontinius nodded, motioning him to continue. ‘I’ll drink to your archers. Untrained and unready for the fight they may have been, but they stood taller than all the rest of us so-called ‘warriors’ by their deeds yesterday. They were the real champions of the fight.’

He lifted the drinking horn and the Tungrian officers nodded soberly, starkly aware that half of Marcus’s century had been killed or badly wounded in the battle on the banks of the Red. The first spear drained his beaker and set it down on the nearest table.

‘Well said. And now, my brothers, I’ll bid you goodnight. Drink up and get yourselves into your racks for a few hours. Tomorrow’s march will be just as savage as today’s was, and I’ll have you bright eyed and ready for anything if it’s all the same to you.’

He made his way out of the mess, walking past the 2nd Cohort’s barracks as he headed towards the main gate and his own cohort’s quarters, returning the guards’ respectful salutes as he mused on their marching route for the following day.

Furius watched him from inside the hospital’s lobby until he was out of sight, waiting another moment in case he turned around for any reason. When he was satisfied that there was no risk of the veteran officer discovering him, he turned to the hospital’s main corridor, walking quietly down the passageway off which the wards opened, his boots making quiet creaking noises with each step. Each room was packed with wounded men, all oblivious to his presence as a combination of the brutal shock of their treatment and the drugs prescribed for them by the doctor had rendered them senseless. At the end of the corridor he stopped and listened, hearing his quarry’s quiet voice as the doctor talked herself through the notes she was making on each of the surgical cases she had dealt with that evening. He opened the door and walked into her cramped office, enjoying the warmth of the fire burning in a small hearth on the far wall. The woman started at his unexpected presence, relaxing as she realised who the newcomer was. That, he mused with an inward smile, would change soon enough.

‘Good evening, Prefect Furius. You’ve come to see your wounded, I suppose. They’re…’

Furius rode over her tired voice, his tone harsh enough to make Felicia lean back in her chair.

‘No, Doctor, the person I’ve come to see is you. And you’re a little out of date with your greeting; I am no longer Prefect Furius, but just plain Furius now. Furius the failure, the coward. Furius the dismissed is what I am now, but strangely enough my new-found status has finally liberated me from expectations of how a senior officer should behave.’ He closed the door behind him, smiling hungrily down at the seated woman. ‘You won’t be aware of it, but my sexual tastes have troubled me for most of my adult life. You see, my dear, I enjoy women the most when they struggle…’ Felicia stared up at him in dawning horror, then around the office for some way to defend herself. ‘The problem is that some of the women I’ve favoured with my manhood have struggled so hard that I’ve been accused of rape.’ He sighed, shaking his head sadly. ‘My father paid off the families the first couple of times, but I soon took to strangling the women whose bodies I enjoyed in order to ensure their silence. That’s how I ended up being moved on from First Minervia, a pretty young thing that I took a fancy to but who was just a little bit too well connected for the matter to be brushed under the mat. Nobody could prove anything, but there was enough suspicion for the legatus to send me away. In my own best interests, of course, or so he told me. The lady’s brothers had sworn their revenge on an altar to Nemesis, apparently.’ He raised an arm and declaimed: ‘“Nemesis, winged balancer of life, dark-faced goddess, daughter of Justice.”’

He smiled, and Felicia recoiled again at the blank look in his eyes. ‘Of course, the legatus couldn’t tell my new superiors why he was moving me on, or they would have refused to accept my onward posting, and so here I was with no one any the wiser as to my very particular needs. Nemesis, daughter of justice? Hah! There is no justice.’ He squatted down, bringing his face close to hers. ‘If there were I would not be locked up safely in the prefect’s residence waiting for a quiet and ignominious departure tomorrow morning, or so everyone else but you and me believes. Which, of course, gives me licence to do whatever I please with you, my dear, and without fear of discovery as long as I cover my tracks well… I presume you’ll be well aware of what I like to do to my partners, given that you examined one of my victims once I was done with her?’

The horrified doctor nodded slowly, unable to take her eyes from the face in front of her. Furius smiled slowly, then reached out with sudden speed and gripped the collar of her tunic with both hands, rending the garment apart with his immense strength. He put a hand around her throat and forced her to her feet, pushing her up against the wall while using the other hand to tear away the ruined tunic, revealing her body to him.

‘Oh yes, exactly what I need. You, my dear, are going to be squealing like a stuck pig in a minute or two.’

He pulled down the linen band restraining her breasts, allowing them to bob loose, and gripped a nipple with a fierce tweak. The abused flesh stiffened in protest, as an amused grin played across his face.

‘See, your body is already betraying you… you bitches always enjoy what I’ve got to offer, even if you pretend to resist!’

The door opened behind him with a groan of hinges. Cornelius Felix walked gingerly through the doorway, his right arm tightly bound in a sling.

‘Doctor, I… good grief, what in Hades are…’

Furius pivoted swiftly, driving a bunched fist into his face and catapulting him across the corridor and off the far wall. The wounded cavalry officer slumped to the floor, already unconscious. Furius turned back to find the naked woman clawing frantically at the room’s shutter. Pulling her away from the window and pushing her to the floor with a triumphant laugh, he delivered a stinging backhanded slap to her face.

‘No you don’t. Let’s have those undergarments off, shall we. Open wide!’

In the officers’ mess Marcus drained his beaker, putting it down on the table and picking up his helmet, looking around for a moment.

‘Damn.’

Rufius raised an eyebrow.

‘My vine stick. I must have left it in the hospital.’

His friend drank his wine and picked up his own helmet.

‘It’s only round the corner, I’ll come with you. It’ll give us a chance to see how Dubnus is doing. You coming, Martos?’

The Briton nodded, tipping back the contents of his drinking horn and shoving it into his belt. Julius picked up his helmet, shooting Marcus a wry smile.

‘I’ll come too. Someone’s got to make sure you come back to your barrack nice and promptly, or we’ll have a repeat of what happened the last time you were left alone with her. Can’t have you turning up on parade in the morning looking like you’ve been pulled through a hedge, can we?’

The four men made their way to the door, stepping out into the cold night air under a blaze of stars and strolling down the street towards the hospital. The light of a lamp flickered through the shutters of the doctor’s office window, making Marcus shake his head.

‘She’s still at it. So much for “you go and get some slee…”’

‘Quiet!’

They turned and looked at Martos, his head cocked the better to listen. In the silence they all heard the sound, a woman’s cry of distress. Rufius made the connection first, dashing off along the street with the other men in close pursuit. He took the steps into the hospital’s lobby two at a time and lunged into the corridor, his pace hastened further by the slumped body at its far end. Drawing his sword, he sprinted down the length of the building, kicking the office door open to find the helpless Felicia pinned to the floor with Furius on top of her, her legs forced open by his muscular thighs, one hand stifling her screams and the other between their bodies, his buttocks moving slightly as he readied himself to thrust into her. The doctor saw Rufius over her attacker’s shoulder, her eyes bulging as he stepped into the office and stooped to put his blade’s point against her rapist’s anus. Furius froze into immobility with the weapon’s first touch, looking over his shoulder in amazement at the furious centurion.

‘Get off her now, or I’ll put my iron so far up you it’ll stop your heart without ever disturbing your ribs, you piece of shit.’

The other officers appeared in the door behind him, Julius sizing up the situation in an instant.

‘Keep him there. Lady, bring yourself out from under him, nice and easy.’

Felicia struggled out from beneath Furius’s weight, spitting into his face with shocked anger. Julius tapped Marcus on the shoulder hard, seeing his friend’s ash-white face and knowing that the man was seconds from taking a blade to the prostrate former officer.

‘Get your woman out of here, Centurion, and give her some decency. We’ll deal with this bastard once she’s safely out of the way.’

He stepped into the office and put an iron-nailed boot on to Furius’s neck, crushing the man’s face into the hard stone floor.

‘Tie his hands behind his back with your belt.’ He waited while the older man secured their prisoner’s wrists. ‘Good. Now sheathe your blade, Rufius; this one won’t struggle, not now he’s dealing with fighting men and not trying to violate a defenceless woman. And besides, I’m rather looking forward to seeing his face when we scourge his back off and then nail him up tomorrow morning. That is your preferred method of punishment, I believe…?’

Furius lay helpless under the centurion’s booted foot, but his snarled response was anything but.

‘You won’t dare bring me to justice, Centurion, I know things that you can’t afford to have made public!’

The boot pinning him to the floor pushed down harder, Julius turning to his brother centurion.

‘Go on; get whoever that is lying outside sorted out.’

Rufius sheathed his sword, leaving the room and allowing Martos through the door to get his first glimpse of the prostrate Furius. Julius bent and took a handful of Furius’s hair, pulling his head off the floor despite the foot pinning his neck.

‘Go on, then, let’s hear these things we don’t want to be known.’

Furius spat his frustration into the words, half choked by the position the angry centurion had forced him into.

‘Your centurion… the boy with the… unconvincing name… I know he’s a fugitive… and that you’re all… hiding him.’ He paused, swallowing painfully. ‘You put me on display… and I’ll shout that so long and loud… the gods will hear it.’

Julius laughed, wrenching the helpless man’s head to one side so that he could see the centurion standing over him.

‘Very good, ex-Prefect. You’ve just earned yourself a private death.’ He pulled a dagger from his belt, putting the blade close to Furius’s face. ‘I might blind you first, and then we’ll truss you up and take you out into the woods. I fancy staking you out and leaving you for the animals to find you…’

Disquietingly, the former officer laughed back at him in spite of his discomfort.

‘That would be… brave of you… No, I mean it!’

Julius had pulled his head back farther, threatening to finish the job of choking him to death, and he exchanged an uneasy glance with Martos.

‘Brave, eh?’

‘Yes… anything that brings… the corn officers… will bring your lies… crashing down… expose the fugitive… crush you all.’

Martos tapped Julius on the shoulder.

‘I think that what’s needed here is for this man to die an unremarkable death. Something to arouse no suspicion, perhaps?’

Julius nodded, raising an eyebrow.

‘And you know how to make this happen?’

The Briton nodded, pulling the drinking horn from his belt and pointing to their captive’s bare backside. Julius frowned uncomprehendingly.

‘We’re going to bugger him to death with a drinking horn?’

Martos shook his head, raising a hand to forestall any more questions.

‘I’ll be back in a moment.’ He leaned in closer, bending to slap Furius’s ear hard enough to provoke a howl of rage that covered his brief whisper to the centurion. ‘Make him believe he’s won. He mustn’t struggle for the next few minutes; we want no marks on his body. Just do one thing for me while I’m gone…’

Having explained what he wanted, he left the office and went to the surgery, looking around for the tool he wanted. Finding a suitably robust bone saw he worked swiftly, cutting off the last inch of the horn’s tip to reveal a hole as wide as his middle finger.

‘Perfect.’

He pocketed the horn’s tip, and then went in search of the other centurions. He found them both in the main ward, watching as the doctor, dressed in a spare tunic and apparently recovered from her ordeal, fussed over the young man they had found unconscious in the corridor.

‘He seems to have nothing worse than a slight concussion. Poor man, I thought that animal had managed to do what the barbarian archers had failed to achieve.’

She looked up as Martos approached the small group. He nodded to her, speaking to the two centurions.

‘Brothers, I need your help with our prisoner.’

Rufius and Marcus followed the Briton to the office door, where he stopped them and spoke quickly, showing them the horn and explaining what he proposed. All three men crowded into the office, almost filling the small room with their bulk. Julius gave them an exasperated stare, while Furius, hearing the rapping of boot nails on the stone floor, renewed his harangue of his captors.

‘Just surrender to the inevitable, you fools! Release me now and I may choose to overlook this stupidity. Hold me here any longer and I’ll insist on fucking the doctor’s lovely tight arse as part of the deal!’

Julius stared down at the prone figure, clearly at the end of his patience with the man’s imprecations.

‘Whatever it is you have in mind, Martos, could we just get on with it?’

Martos nodded, showing him the truncated horn with raised eyebrows. After a second the realisation dawned on the centurion, and a slow smile spread across his face.

‘Very well, Prefect Furius, I suppose you’re right. You two, unbind his wrists.’

Marcus and Rufius unfastened the belt tying Furius’s arms, but rather than allowing him up as he expected, they each pinned an arm to the floor, spreadeagling him across the stone while Julius deftly wrapped a powerful arm around his legs, preventing him from kicking out. With his neck no longer under Julius’s boot the disgraced officer craned his head round in amazement.

‘What?! Free me now, or you’ll leave me no option but to…’

He went quiet as Martos squatted down by his head, showing him the ruined drinking horn.

‘This was my father’s, and his father’s before him. I don’t appreciate having to destroy it for the sake of a piece of shit like you, but I have. A man that will attack a woman like that, one of his own people, does not deserve either to live or to leave this life quietly. And so…’

He picked up Felicia’s undergarment from the floor where the disgraced officer had discarded it in his haste to violate the helpless woman. Wadding the linen into a ball he slapped the man’s ear again, then deftly pushed the gag into his mouth as he opened it to bellow another protest.

‘Make the most of that, it’s the last contact with a woman you’ll have in this life.’

He joined Julius, taking a strong grip of one of Furius’s legs. The two men nodded to each other, pulling the man’s legs apart and revealing the Roman’s genitals and his puckered anus. Moving quickly, the Briton pushed the tapered end of the horn into Furius’s rectum, ignoring the muffled protests the helpless captive was now making.

‘Hold this.’

Passing the leg he was gripping to Julius, who flexed his powerful shoulders to hold the limbs in place despite Furius’s increasingly desperate struggles, he picked up the remnants of the doctor’s torn tunic and wrapped it round his hand before reaching for the poker, whose blade Julius had plunged deep into the fire’s coals moments before. Regarding the red-hot metal critically, he pushed it deep into the fire again, stirring up the coals for maximum heat.

‘Well, Roman, it seems we have a moment or two to kill, so I’ll tell you a story.’

Furius goggled at him, his eyes bulging in disbelief.

‘You will probably have heard it before, it’s as old as the hills themselves, but that’s no reason not to spend a moment telling it again. There was once, my grandmother told me when I was very young, a snake whose delight was to bite and kill other creatures, even those — or perhaps especially those — it could not eat. The other beasts of the forest hated and feared the snake in equal measure, since it killed simply to enjoy the sensation. One day, at the height of summer, there was a fire in the forest, and the flames leapt from tree to tree faster than the snake could slither. The snake was afraid of being burned to death, but just when all seemed lost he saw a fox, an intelligent and wily animal, running towards him, for foxes, as I am sure you know, can run fast enough to outpace a forest fire, and for many miles too.

‘So, he called to the fox and begged it to carry him away to safety. The fox, of course, was unimpressed with the request. He knew of this particular snake’s reputation, and he feared that to carry the snake on his back would be his death sentence, but the snake had one powerful argument that he knew would sway the fox. “If I bite you,” he reasoned, “I will burn to death when I fall from your back. Why would I do such a stupid thing?” And so the fox agreed to carry the snake to a safe distance from the fire in return for the reptile’s future favour.

‘Of course, halfway across the forest, where the trees were at their thickest and the fire threatened to overtake them, the snake suddenly sank his fangs into the fox’s neck and delivered a dose of poison that was sure to kill him in seconds. As the fox was struggling in his death agonies, with his sight going dim and his ancestors calling him to join them, and as the fire started to rage around them, he raised himself up with one last mighty effort, and asked the terrified snake the obvious question: “Why have you killed me, when it means your own death?” And the snake, sliding off his back and into the flames that would burn him to death, hissed the answer with fear and shame, but with the certainty of truth. And do you know what he said?’

The Briton gave the gagged Roman a moment to respond. Furius stared at him mutely, his eyes filled with hate.

‘No? What he said was simply this: “I can’t help it. It is in my nature.”’

‘By now, of course, you will have guessed why I have taken this time to tell you this story, apart from the fact the poker needed a little more time to be hot enough for my purposes. You, although I have not known you for very long, clearly have the same lust for death and suffering as the snake in my story. You are a man who is dangerous to all around you, and you will remain so for as long as you live. Some people would be filled with curiosity as to what can lead a man to become so debased, but I am of a more practical mind. I simply want to put you out of this misery you call a life without your evil leading to any more death. And now, it seems that the means of delivering you to Hades without springing these traps of which you speak is ready.’

He hefted the white-hot poker in front of the Roman’s face, watching a bead of sweat trickle down the man’s forehead, then moved to where the horn protruded from between his legs.

‘Brace yourselves, he’s going to struggle with the strength of a bear once this starts.’

He slid the poker into the horn’s conical opening, the smell of burning filling the air as the hot metal seared its interior, then pushed the metal forcefully through its tip and into the prostrate man’s body. Without the gag Furius’s anguished screams would have woken the entire camp, and his body thrashed across the floor despite the four men fighting to hold him down as the hot metal blade tore through his internal organs. With one last massive shudder the dying man sagged lifelessly to the stone floor, his eyes suddenly glassy and empty of life. Martos withdrew the poker, filling the room with the stench of buring offal, then pushed it back into the fire to burn off the residue of Furius’s organs clinging to its surface, and tossed the ruined drinking horn on to the coals. Julius stared down at the body, shaking his head in wonder.

‘The perfect murder. No signs on the victim’s body, and no trace of the means of death. Get him dressed, brothers.’

Tribune Licinius, summoned from the bed into which he had just gratefully slumped, took one look at Furius’s corpse laid out on the operating table in his boots and tunic and called for the doctor.

‘What can you tell me about this, my dear? I’ll have to explain this to more than one very senior officer and I’d like to get my story straight before the questions begin.’

If he noticed the tense air in the room he chose to ignore it, waiting for Felicia to make her reply.

‘He had come to see his men. He was talking to me in my office when he collapsed without any warning, clutching his chest and shouting with the pain, then passed out. I couldn’t find a pulse, so I called for the officers here to help me.’

‘And all of you saw this?’

Julius answered for the three of them.

‘Not really, Tribune. We were having a quiet look at our brother officer when we heard the prefect here hit the floor, and then the doctor called for help. He was as limp as a rag when we picked him up to put him on the table.’

‘You knew that he’d been relieved of command?’

‘Yes, sir, our first spear told us about it. We just thought the prefect might have seen the error of his ways and come to visit his wounded…’

‘Hmmm. And not a mark on him, eh, Doctor?’

Felicia looked him square in the eye.

‘Not that I could find, Tribune Licinius, not a cut, nor a bruise of any significance. You’re welcome to have a look yourself, if you like?’

Licinius’s eyes narrowed, and he sniffed the room’s air ostentatiously, raising an eyebrow at windows opened wide despite the night air’s chill.

‘No need, Doctor; you’re the expert here. But that’s a nasty bruise you’ve got coming up round your left eye.’

Felicia stared straight back at him, her eyes suddenly glassy with barely restrained tears and her answer delivered in a quavering voice.

‘A patient managed to get his arm free during surgery, Prefect. It happens sometimes, and he managed to catch me a nasty blow on the face before he could be restrained. I’ll live.’

The tribune’s face softened.

‘I’m sorry, my dear, if I’d known there was a risk of any such thing happening I would have made sure he was restrained more effectively. And you, gentlemen…’

The centurions waited stiffly, pondering their fate while the senior officer paced around the table to stand close to them, speaking in a low voice that was intended for their ears alone.

‘I have no idea how you managed to achieve this, but given what I am guessing has happened here, I’m mightily relieved that this is such an obvious case of death by natural causes.’ He cocked an eyebrow at Frontinius and Scaurus, waiting silently to one side. ‘And now, gentlemen, since we’re kept from our beds by this unfortunate occurrence, we might as well go and get a cup of wine. I’ll drink to your promotion and to this fool’s timely demise in equal measure.’

The two cohorts paraded at dawn that morning, fifteen hundred infantrymen cursing the thought of another long day’s hard marching. Morban nudged Qadir in the ribs, tipping his head towards the Petriana wing as they clattered past the parade ground, heading for the road north and their main task for the day, hunting for any barbarian ambush.

‘They won’t be sweating all bloody day like we will, they’ll be sat nice and comfy on their bloody horses giving the bushes an occasional poke with their spears.’

The Hamian shrugged, muttering his response so quietly that only Morban could hear it.

‘If you can’t take a joke, Standard-bearer, you should not have joined the army in the first place.’

Morban gave him a dirty look.

‘All you need to do is learn to swear and you’ll be nicely positioned for a vine stick when the next one dies…’

He withered under Marcus’s stare as the young centurion turned and glared at him. Qadir looked down his nose at him, shaking his head almost imperceptibly.

‘Not so clever. Not with his friend still in the camp hospital.’

Morban nodded glumly, watching as Scaurus strode out on to the parade ground with Frontinius and Neuto flanking him to either side.

‘Tungrians, hear me! By the command of Ulpius Marcellus, governor of this province, I have been appointed to the command of both the First and Second Tungrian cohorts, with the rank of cohort tribune…’ The parade ground was suddenly deathly quiet, as the much-anticipated news became reality. Scaurus continued, walking slowly across the gravel with both hands on his hips. ‘For the time being nothing changes. Your officers before this announcement are still your officers now. I will, however, be reviewing the strengths and weaknesses of both cohorts, and making selective changes where I and my first spears feel they are required.’

The new tribune stopped speaking and stared across the ranks of his command, allowing time for the last sentence to sink in before speaking again.

‘We march north now to rejoin the legions, and I expect that once again we’ll have a front-row seat when the time comes to finish this war by finding and destroying the enemy. With that in mind, and given the price paid in blood by the First Cohort’s Eighth Century, I have decided to release the remainder of that century to serve with the First Hamian cohort, who are currently manning this fort. Centurion Corvus will command the Ninth Century while their officer is recovering from his wound, and the First Cohort will carry the Eighth as an empty century until sufficient reinforcements are received to reconstitute it. So, I call upon our Hamian brothers to come forward and accept your acclamation before we march north…’

Marcus walked from his place in front of the 8th to one end of their short line, beckoning Morban and the trumpeter to join him behind the archers. Extending an arm to Qadir, he shook his chosen man’s hand before pointing to the waiting tribune.

‘Just march them over to Tribune Scaurus. He’ll probably want to shake your hand, and then I’d imagine he’ll appoint you centurion before the Hamian prefect gets his hands on your men. I’d say you’ve earned it.’

The chosen man stared at him in amazement.

‘Centurion?’

Marcus nodded, a smile creasing his face.

‘Yes. If Scaurus appoints you now, then rather than your reverting to temporary status you’ll get to keep the position. No matter how many other good candidates the Hamian prefect might have queued up for the job. Once your wounded have recovered you’ll have a good-sized century to chase around the hills.’

Qadir’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly.

‘I do not…’

‘Know what to say? The words ‘thank you, Tribune’ will make a good start. And he’s still waiting for you, so I suggest you get your men out there and take what you’ve earned.’

The Hamian nodded, ordering his men to march forward to the spot where the tribune was waiting. Marcus watched as he stepped through their line and snapped off a smart salute to Scaurus, then took the offered hand and shook it, all the while apparently speaking to the tribune rather than allowing him a chance to say the words he had prepared for the occasion.

‘So, back to the Ninth again. It’ll be good to be in front of the lads with a statue again.’

Marcus raised an eyebrow in apparent surprise.

‘Who said you’d be the Ninth’s standard-bearer?’

‘But you…’

‘They haven’t got a centurion, but they’re not missing a standard-bearer…’ The centurion waited for a moment until the trumpeter smirked at Morban’s back before adding, ‘… or a trumpeter.’ He turned back to the 8th, noting that Scaurus was now speaking, the expression on his face earnest and yet not entirely displeased. ‘What in Hades is keeping them?’

Morban sniffed loudly, wounded pride dripping from his words.

‘Qadir’s probably turning down the chance to sit out the war here in peace and comfort and asking to be assigned to the Ninth with you, Centurion.’

Marcus glanced round at him with an incredulous look before returning his gaze to the scene playing out in front of the cohort.

‘Nobody, Standard-bearer, is that stupid.’

The older man’s face stayed perfectly straight, and he nudged the trumpeter with his foot, unseen by Marcus.

‘A small wager, Centurion? Say… ten denarii at five to one?’

Marcus answered without even turning round.

‘Done.’

The discussion seemed to have finished, but before Marcus had a chance to comment the newly appointed tribune beckoned to him with a raised hand.

‘Centurion Corvus, join us, please.’

He walked across the parade ground with a sinking feeling, snapping off a crisp salute and waiting for the tribune to speak. Scaurus’s face was a picture of irritated bemusement.

‘It seems that your former chosen man doesn’t want to accept the position of centurion I’ve offered him. He seems to prefer serving with you in the Ninth Century, even if that means accepting a lower rank. Several of his men are of the same opinion, it seems. Perhaps you can talk some sense into him, while the position’s still on the table?’

Qadir turned to face him, his face set obdurately.

‘Qadir, as a centurion you’ll have…’

‘… everything I could possibly desire, my friend, except the knowledge that I am part of the best infantry cohort in the province. A month ago I would have accepted the tribune’s offer with joy for my men’s future safety. Today I cannot accept that safety while I know that you and my other brothers will face such risk again, not while there is a fight waiting for us over the horizon. I’m sorry to throw this offer back in your faces, but I cannot accept it and remain my own man. And I am not the only one who feels this way.’

The tribune spoke up, his voice no longer employing tones of persuasion but now harsh with his authority.

‘Very well. It seems the Eighth-Century do not all wish to join the Hamian cohort. Those men that wish to leave us, and serve with their own people, step forward three paces.’

Of the seventy-odd men remaining in the 8th, roughly two-thirds stepped forward, some with sad glances back at Qadir and their remaining comrades.

‘Those men that wish to remain with the First Tungrian cohort, step back three paces.’

Marcus watched the remaining men as they made the three fateful steps, noting that for the most part they were the men who had made tolerable swordsmen and had coped best under the burden of their weapons and armour. He turned to Scaurus, raising a hand.

‘If I might speak with these men for a moment, Tribune?’

Scaurus nodded, and the young centurion walked out in front of the soldiers who had stepped back to rejoin the Tungrians, clearing his throat and addressing his comments not just to the Hamians before him but to the entire cohort, his voice raised to a parade-ground-spanning bark.

‘Hamians, you wish to remain with the Tungrians with whom you have made your home this last few weeks! You have proved your bravery in the battle at the Red River, where you saved every man here from near-certain ruin and death! But now you seek admission to a brotherhood of arms that can make no further allowances for you! When we march at the forced march you will either cope with that pace or you will fall out of the line of march and take your chances! You will be expected to carry two spears, and to sling them into a man-sized target at twenty paces! Any weaknesses or failings will no longer be tolerated as understandable, given your previous training; they will be run, and practised, and if need be beaten out of you! You will become Tungrians, with everything that implies! Can you accept those terms to your remaining with us?!’

The men in front of him answered in ones and twos, their abashed faces staring at the ground.

‘Not good enough, not if you want to be Tungrians! Can you accept those terms? If you can, the only answer is “Yes, Centurion!”’

The response wasn’t perfect, delivered as a rolling chorus rather than as one crisp response, but it was good enough.

‘Yes, Centurion!’

‘Very well, under those terms I am happy to recommend to the tribune that we retain you on the cohort’s strength and give you a chance to meet our standards. One more thing, though… your bows…’

Inwardly amused, he kept his expression utterly neutral as their faces lengthened, only Qadir gazing at him quizzically as if he already knew what was coming.

‘You’d best keep them, and make sure you have a good supply of arrows. You might be needing them.’

With the Hamians back in their place the prefect dismissed the cohorts to their preparations for the march, the centurions and their chosen men busying themselves checking that their men had all their kit and were ready for the imminent command to move. In the middle of the bustle of getting the 9th Century, now back to full strength with the addition of the Hamians, ready for the day’s marching, Marcus felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned to find First Spear Neuto standing behind him at a respectful distance, and saluted smartly.

‘Can I help you, First Spear?’

The older man held out a small cloth-wrapped package to him.

‘I found this in Prefect Furius’s kit last night, while I was sorting out his personal effects to send to his family once all this is done with. I thought you ought to have it, given what’s inside it.’

Marcus lifted the cloth covering, and the gold cloak pin underneath it winked at him in the morning sunlight.

‘Ah. I wondered where that had got to. Thank you, sir.’

Neuto inclined his head gravely.

‘It was accompanied by a scroll detailing some rather colourful allegations against you and your brother officers. I took the liberty of putting it into the night guard’s brazier.’ He looked around himself for a moment before speaking again. ‘The men that fought with you down at the riverbank told me you gave Centurion Appius his dignity in death, and that you helped them to face the blue-noses when all seemed lost. All things considered I’d say your place is here, not being carted off to Rome to make some bastard in a purple toga feel better about himself.’ He nodded and turned to go, then turned back with a final thought. ‘One thing, though. You might find it a good idea to scratch off that inscription…’

Marcus saluted, returning the first spear’s level gaze.

‘Yes, First Spear. I might.’