Arrows of Fury

4

The Tungrian cohort marched down the hill to the parade ground an hour after dawn with both purpose and trepidation. The troops were unusually quiet and orderly in the cold early light, reflecting soberly on orders that could see any or all of them dead inside the month. The prefect stood alongside First Spear Frontinius, watching the centuries march past, his German bodyguard close behind him. The red-haired giant, a full head taller than his master, had excited much comment in the cohort, both for the obvious strength in his heavily muscled and scarred body and as a result of his apparent unwillingness to speak to anyone save the prefect himself. More than one of the officers had greeted the man, to be met with no more than a respectful nod of his massive head. While there was nothing at which anyone could take offence, neither was there any hint that the man would be a source of either conversation or, more importantly to the cohort’s soldiers, information.

‘Your men look purposeful enough, First Spear, although I’d expected a little more…’

Prefect Scaurus paused for a moment, searching for the right word.

‘Banter? Horseplay? Usually you’d have got it, they express themselves just like any other cohort on the frontier, but they know what’s coming. We lost the best part of two centuries at Lost Eagle, and they were probably assuming that it was too late in the year for any more serious campaigning.’

The prefect nodded his understanding.

‘Nobody can say they haven’t demonstrated their loyalty to the emperor this year. That’s the problem with reputations, there’s always someone that wants to see them demonstrated…’

Frontinius studied the younger man with a sideways glance as his new commander watched the centuries flowing out of the fort and down its paved road on to the wide parade ground. A head taller than the first spear, the prefect had a spare frame more suited to distance running than infantry combat, yet seemed to carry the weight of his armour and helmet easily enough.

‘And speaking of reputations, you’re still not sure what to make of what you see, eh, First Spear?’

Frontinius started at his prefect’s comment, delivered in a level, almost bored tone without the younger man ever taking his eyes off the marching troops.

‘I’m sorry, Prefect, I was just…’

‘Relax. It would be a strange thing if you weren’t still wondering what to expect from your new commander. Right about now I should probably be telling you what an experienced soldier I am, putting your mind at ease on the subject of whether I’m fit for command of your men. Am I right? After all, I’ve been here for a fortnight and never once even hinted at my experience beyond telling you what positions I’ve served in previously.’

Frontinius nodded grudgingly.

‘It’s often the case that a new commander will make a point of telling his officers about any fighting he’s taken part in, although I don’t really…’

He stopped talking as Scaurus turned to look at him with a half-smile playing on his lips.

‘I know. You want to know my capabilities, but you don’t want to overstep the mark in asking me to tell you where I’ve been and what I’ve done. Well, First Spear, let’s have an agreement, shall we? I won’t question you on the subject of your competence, other than wanting every last tiny detail about this cohort and this war from you, and in return you’ll let me demonstrate the way I work by just watching me work. Whether you take that as a sign of strength or weakness doesn’t really concern me very much, and we’ll learn a good deal more about each other than we might by trotting out lists of achievements that either of us could have gilded or even plain fabricated for all the other man knows. Agreed?’

Frontinius held his return stare for a moment before nodding slowly.

‘As you wish, Prefect.’

The cohort paraded, the ground’s sandy surface grey in the dawn’s weak light. Frontinius strode out in front of his eight hundred men, addressing them at a volume that made his words audible from one end of the parade to the other.

‘Good morning, First Cohort. This is an important day. This day will live as long in your memories as that little skirmish with the blue-noses a few weeks ago.’ He paused for a moment, watching the faces of those men in the ranks closest to him, their expressions betraying a mixture of faint amusement and sick apprehension. ‘This is the day we go back to war. Now that we’ve got a new prefect and two centuries of replacements, we are considered ready to fight. Our orders are to march east and join up with the Sixth Legion for one last effort before the weather gets too cold for us to stay in the field. Soldiers, this cohort was the first one on the list when the governor was deciding which units to put alongside his legions in the line of battle. You are proven battle winners, and your reputation goes before you.’

He paused, searching the same faces and finding them mostly set with determination. Good enough. ‘I know that you were hoping not to be called back into the war this year, but I also know that you are strong enough to give the emperor your best efforts for as long as it takes to finish this war, and put Calgus in chains and on his way to Rome. And now, before we start, let me introduce you to your new comrades. The Sixth Century, eighty home-grown Tungrian recruits to bolster our fighting strength, and the Eighth Century, a double-strength century of archers from Hamath in the province of Syria, far to the east of Rome. As of this moment they are fully fledged members of this cohort, and I expect them to be treated with the appropriate respect. It’s obvious to all of you that the men of the Eighth Century are different to the troops that we usually encounter, but I don’t expect that to make any difference to any soldier here. The first man in front of me at the punishment table for raising a hand to any of these men without very good reason will feel like he’s been hit by a falling tree by the time I’ve finished with him.’

He paused for breath, raking the impassive troops with a hard stare.

‘Nevertheless, our new Hamian comrades do present us with something of a problem in that they are unused to bearing the kind of weight that we routinely carry around on campaign. And so…’ He gestured to his officers, and then waited while Marcus, Dubnus, Rufius and Julius walked out in front of the cohort to join him. ‘The Eighth Century will need help to achieve the same performance as the rest of you, and so I am therefore temporarily detaching these three centurions from their centuries, and giving them and Centurion Corvus forty men from the Eighth apiece to work with. With a little luck we’ll have our new centuries ready for anything the blue-noses can throw at them by the time that we see action. Centurions, carry on with morning exercises.’

The four centurions quickly divided the 8th into four equal-sized groups, each of them pulling their temporary command into a tight huddle around them. Marcus, having retained Qadir in his party, spoke slowly, giving his chosen man time to translate his words for those men whose grasp of Latin was imperfect.

‘You may be archers, but you’re going to learn to fight as infantrymen and you’re going to do it quickly. Whenever we have the opportunity, you will train as one century, but with frequent and close attention to your sword and shield drill. My brother officers and I will help you learn how to fight in practice combat with their centuries, but first we need you to grasp the basics. And the first basic is shield handling. You, come out in front with me.’

The wide-eyed Hamian stepped away from the comfortable anonymity of his place in the front rank, eyeing his new officer uncertainly and casting the occasional nervous glance at Qadir.

‘Raise your shield until you can just see over the top. No, higher

… that’s right. Now, brace yourself, and remember that your shield is your only defence against the enemy’s swords and spears. We’ll worry about spears later, so let’s see how you do against a trained swordsman. Antenoch?’

His clerk stepped forward, swinging a heavy wooden practice sword and smiling at the nervous archer in anticipation as he limbered up to fight. He held up the sword, making sure the Hamian got a good look at its scarred wooden blade.

‘This is a practice sword. It’s heavier than the real thing to help build strength in the sword arm, and that means it will make an almighty bang when it hits your shield. It will jar your shield arm, but if you drop the shield then the next thing you know you’ll be face down with your guts hanging out. Ready?’

The Hamian managed a hesitant nod, triggering Antenoch’s attack. Hammering at the man’s shield with the heavy wooden sword, he beat back the panicking archer until the Hamian was almost on his knees, then thrust the blade over the top of his sinking shield to inflict a painful jab into the gap between his mail coat’s neck and the rim of his helmet. He stepped back from his grimacing victim, watching the man rub the sore spot.

‘You let the shield fall and opened yourself up for the kill. You’re dead. Get back in ranks. You, come out here.’

Another man stepped out to face him, his face set in determination.

‘Good, you look keen; let’s see what you can do. Remember, keep that shield up.’

Ten seconds later the Hamian was on his back, cursing at the pain in his right ankle while Antenoch reached down to pull him back to his feet.

‘That was better, but if an enemy sees that your shield is held too high he’s likely to try to go under it and cut your feet off. You need to keep your eyes open, and drop your shield to stop his attack if necessary. Let’s try that again.’

Qadir leaned across to Marcus.

‘And if two men attack at the same time, one high and one low? Surely then the man is doomed?’

Marcus smiled without taking his eyes off Antenoch’s demonstration.

‘Not if he’s in possession of the infantryman’s two most important assets.’

The chosen man raised an eyebrow.

‘And those are…?’

Marcus lifted the ornately decorated gladius bequeathed to him by Legatus Sollemnis halfway out of its scabbard, the razor-edged blade gleaming in the weak morning sun.

‘One of these, and those.’

He pointed at the gathered Hamians as they watched Antenoch’s demonstration with wide eyes.

‘Soldiers?’

Marcus shook his head.

‘Not soldiers, Qadir, brothers. And all in good time.’

Calgus strolled out of his tent later that morning, having apparently spent the night there. In reality he had entered it less then five minutes before through an opening cut in the side facing the forest, having made the return journey through the forest by the light of torches carried by his bodyguard. His adviser Aed was waiting for him as summoned, and the old man looked up at his king with a calculating gaze, the slight wind ruffling his thin hair.

‘My lord. I trust your venture into the forest met with acceptable results?’

Calgus nodded, looking out over the camp from their vantage point, the highest ground within the palisade wall.

‘Oh yes, very acceptable once their initial caution was out of the way. When the time is right, our trap will spring shut on the legions with a finality that will remove the print of their boots from our soil for good. We will slaughter Romans in numbers not seen since their great German massacre, and after that disaster they’ve never attempted to colonise the lands beyond the Rhenus in all the one hundred and fifty years that have followed. I will make these lands as great a source of terror to the Romans as ever the forests of Germania were, and drive them back into their fortresses far to the south of their wall, never to return.’

The old man nodded, his soft voice expressing views intended for his king’s ears alone.

‘A glorious aim, my lord. Before that, however, you may have to consider dealing with King Brennus at some point in the near future. In your absence he has continued to spread discontent, and his defiance will inevitably encourage others to consider their obedience to you. Do we still need his people’s spears in our strength, given your apparent success in bringing fresh support to our cause?’

Calgus nodded, looking down the slope to the Votadini section of the camp.

‘I suppose not, given their continual agitation against me. But I cannot send them back to their land, my own warriors would start to question the need for them to remain were that many spears to walk away, and as for the other kings…’

Aed smiled thinly, his eyes bright with purpose.

‘Perhaps there is an opportunity here? Were the Votadini to be caught in the open by our enemies they would undoubtedly be massacred to the last man. That would leave their king alone and isolated here, and his kingdom open for… annexation. If only we could find someone within their number with sufficient ambition to allow himself to be lured into such a mistake, it is quite possible that our enemy would remove the problem without ever dreaming of the service they would be performing for you.’ He paused for a moment, his sly glance flicking to meet his king’s amused stare. ‘Perhaps you might cultivate King Brennus’s nephew, Martos? My friends in their camp tell me that he longs to lead the tribe into battle at their head, and cover his roof beams with Roman heads.’

Calgus shook his head slowly, a smile spreading across his face as the audacity of the idea gripped his imagination.

‘Gods, Aed, but you’ll outdo me for ruthlessness any time you like. You advise me to send the Votadini to their deaths, murder their king and take his lands?’

Aed shrugged, his expression neutral.

‘Sometimes large problems demand harsh solutions, my lord. The Votadini will be no worse off under your control than under Brennus, and there is no way you can trust the man. His behaviour shouts his defiance of your reign, and he has more men available than are camped here. If the warriors he has held back succeed in their search for the hostages, he will have us both at spear point five minutes after the news of their release reaches him. A change of leadership might bring some relief from his incessant complaining and scheming. I suspect that he is in contact with the Romans…’

Calgus laughed.

‘I don’t doubt he’s in contact with them, or how could he have been so confident that my head would buy him peace with them? I don’t think his men will find their kinfolk in a year of searching, and I don’t believe that we can kill him and be sure that the act won’t have repercussions beyond our control… but I take your point. He’s a focus for discontent, and that can only get stronger once we join battle with the Romans and their lackeys. There is an idea I’ve been musing on these last few days, a way to bring the remaining legions north with a fury on them that will have their heads in our trap before they have the time to see it. Perhaps I might invite Brennus’s nephew along to share the spoils?

The morning stayed dry, despite the gathering clouds threatening rain, and by the break for the midday ration Marcus reckoned that the Hamians had absorbed as much shield drill as they were going to for one day. Dubnus confirmed his view with a weary shake of his head.

‘Their heads have gone to cabbage, it’s all too much for them. I vote we get them out in the hills and get some air into their lungs.’

The other officers agreed, and once the midday ration was consumed the 8th was formed into column of march and headed off into the land to the wall’s south. Initially setting a gentle pace, Marcus gradually increased his speed at the column’s head until the Hamians were covering ground at something like the rate required to keep up with the rest of the cohort on the march. He turned and walked backwards for a moment, assessing their sweating, strained faces and painful gaits before calling across to Morban.

‘Keep them moving, I’m going for a chat with Qadir.’

The chosen man was halfway down the column, encouraging a flagging man to keep up his pace. Marcus waved to Dubnus, pointing at the struggling archer, and his friend ran up the column with a barked command to keep moving.

‘This man’s finding it hard, and I need to talk with the chosen man. Can you help him along for a few minutes?’

Dubnus nodded, gesturing Qadir to surrender his place alongside the flagging archer, the man’s eyes now rolling with desperation. The chosen man moved aside and in a second the massively built centurion was in his place, his mouth close to the struggler’s ear.

‘Are you finding this difficult?’

The man nodded.

‘Would you like to stop?’

The Hamian nodded eagerly, his face lightening with the promise of relief. Marcus winced, knowing what was coming next as Dubnus sucked in a lungful of air and bellowed his response into the flagging soldier’s ear.

‘Well, you fucking well can’t stop, because if you do I’ll put my boot up your arse to the third lace hole! You’re in the field, your century’s on the march, and you’ll stop for nothing and nobody unless your officer says so! It’s march or fucking die for you, sonny, and the rest of you, so forget that it hurts and focus on the man in front of you! If he can do it, so can you! You in the next rank, stop your fucking smirking unless you want to come for a private run with me and see how long you last, you bow-twanging ration thief!’

Marcus shrugged at Qadir’s raised eyebrows as they moved a few paces away from the marching column’s path.

‘He was my chosen man until recently, and he seems to have retained the non-commissioned officer’s approach to motivation.’

Farther down the line Julius was giving another man the same treatment, his face contorted with apparent rage.

‘That pain you’re feeling is weakness leaving your body, so stop your snivelling and march, you maggot! If you fall out of the line of march I will beat you back into it with my vine stick, and if that breaks I’ll use the flat of my fucking sword! You can either march or choke, but whichever one it’s going to be, fucking get on with it!’

Qadir looked back for a long moment, and then turned back to his centurion with evident distaste.

‘It is not my approach.’

Marcus shrugged, more than a little embarrassed at his chosen man’s air of disappointment.

‘I know, but given the time we have to make these men battle ready we’re left with little alternative. You’re going to have to harden your heart a little, Chosen, or your men aren’t going to be ready when the time comes for them to march and fight with the rest of the cohort.’

The other man nodded unhappily as Marcus continued.

‘Yesterday they finished a march that should have taken four hours in twice that time, and their feet were raw meat before they even started. If we take them into the field in this state they’ll be a liability to the cohort, incapable of either marching or fighting. So I’ve got two choices, I either get them fit at a reasonable pace and give them time for their feet to recover, or I push them through their pain and get quicker results. And you and I need quicker results. Their feet will turn to leather quickly enough. But I need your help, I need you alongside me while I’m pushing them, so that they can see there’s no way out of this nightmare except to give more of themselves than they knew they had in them.’

Qadir looked at him, a hint of disbelief in his face.

‘And if they do not have any more of themselves to give?’

Marcus’s smile was grim.

‘Oh, they’ve got it, we all do. It just has to be pulled out of them. My friend Dubnus has one method, Rufius, Julius and I are all a little different in style, but we’re all looking to get the same results. By the time we’ve finished with your men they’ll march thirty miles in a day and still be singing their hearts out for the last mile. They’ll stand in line and stop a barbarian charge with the rest of the cohort. I hope they’ll still be archers, but they will be infantrymen, I promise you that.’

The century marched on for another twenty minutes until Marcus judged that they had reached the point he had agreed earlier with Julius. Morban gave the signal for the halt, reinforced by the century’s trumpeter blasting out a single note.

‘Rest break! Water only and leave your field rations alone!’

The Hamians sagged exhausted to the ground for the most part, and Marcus allowed them a few minutes of rest before gaining their attention with three raps of his practice sword on a soldier’s shield.

‘Eighth Century, there is something wrong here. Can anyone tell me what it is? No? A silver sestertius to the man that can tell me. Not you, Morban, you already know the answer.’

The Hamians stared at him and about them, searching with renewed interest.

‘Anyone? No? The answer isn’t out there, it’s right in front of me.’

The Hamians stared at Marcus uncomprehendingly, as he hardened his voice with scorn.

‘The second I called the rest halt you soldiers were on your backs without a care in the world. No guards posted, no one worried about anything beyond getting a gutful of water, and no concern for what might be over the next hill. Or waiting for you in that wood.’

He pointed at the treeline two hundred paces distant and blew his whistle in a shrill blast. Armed and armoured men emerged from the trees, forming into a battle line.

‘Lucky for you that’s only the Fifth Century, and not a blue-nose warband screaming for your blood. There are two lessons to be taken from this. One: you take your rest stops standing up from now on, and each tent party chooses a man to stand guard, with the specific duty of watching the ground around them for danger. Now, would anyone care to guess the second lesson?’ The Hamians stared at him blankly, and a feeling of near-despair made the young centurion shake his head. ‘The next lesson, gentlemen, is basic infantry fighting. In two minutes those soldiers are going to charge into our line in exactly the same way the blue-noses will once they get the chance. This is your chance to practice your shield drills from this morning. Form a line! Move!’

Later that evening, with the sun well beneath the horizon and the 8th Century nursing blisters and aches in their barrack, too tired on their return to the fort for there to be any point in archery practice, the centurions gathered for a cup of wine in The Hill’s officers’ mess. Marcus tipped his cup back and called for another with a speed that raised Rufius’s eyebrows. Julius and Dubnus exchanged knowing glances, and Rufius tipped the cup towards him, ostentatiously staring into its emptiness.

‘Anyone would think you’d had a hard day lad, rather than the gentle stroll round the hills that we enjoyed today. Or is there something on your mind, perhaps?’

Marcus blew a long breath out through his lips.

‘What do you think? We march for Noisy Valley tomorrow, and we could be in action against the tribes a few days after that. How in Cocidius’s name are we going to turn them into soldiers before they have to fight for their lives against men that have spent most of their lives getting ready to kill them?’

Julius shook his head, his scorn evident even through a mouthful of dried meat.

‘One day and you’re giving up? Just because my lads gave your boys a gentle spanking?’

Marcus closed his eyes at the memory. Julius’s 5th Century had battered the 8th into submission in less than a minute despite being half their strength. The brutal simplicity of their assault had scattered the hapless Hamians like chaff, and their march back to The Hill had been a sombre plod conducted in resentful silence.

Rufius shook his head on the other side of the table.

‘Our young friend’s dismay is simply the result of inexperience.’

He put his cup down, placing both hands on the table’s scarred surface.

‘Marcus, have you ever taken a century of recruits from raw to trained? Your exploits with the Ninth don’t count. Your lads were already infantry trained, they just lacked the right leadership until you turned up. I don’t doubt your ability to lead experienced soldiers, I’m just asking if you’ve ever been part of turning a collection of farm boys into infantrymen?’

Marcus shook his head slowly.

‘I wasn’t a guard officer for long enough…’

‘… and the praetorians tend to take in men who’ve already had the rough edges hammered off them. You see, taking stupid lazy kids and turning them into fighting men is a bit of an art.’

Julius nodded sagely, and even Dubnus was giving the veteran centurion an approving look.

‘You get them on the parade ground on their first day and you’d swear they didn’t know left from right, much less which end of their new spear has the pointy iron thing attached. All you’ve got is eighty or so individuals, some stupid, some lazy, and all of them utterly clueless. As a legion centurion faced with that, all you’ve got to help you is a chosen man to push them around from behind and a watch officer who, if you’re lucky, has trained recruits before. That and a few simple rules learned from older and possibly wiser men down the years of your service.’

Rufius raised an eyebrow to the other two, both of whom nodded sagely as he continued his lecture.

‘There are only three tricks that a centurion has to perform to turn the average bunch of teenage idiots into trained troops, ready to try their hand against the barbarians. Number one is obvious — he has to drill them in the use of shield, sword and spear in every spare moment, until every possible move, attack or defend, is as natural to them as breathing. That way they’ll do whatever he orders without even having to think about it. Number two, he has to get them fit, ready to run all day if that’s what’s needed, and he has to run alongside them every step of the way or lose their respect. But those are the easy bits, and without trick number three all you end up with is a bunch of fit idiots who know how to sling a spear but can’t see any reason why they should.’

He paused for a drink, aware that every officer in the room was listening now, most of them with faint smiles. He gestured around the mess with his free hand.

‘See, both young Caelius and that battered old bastard Otho both know what I mean. Trick number three is the most delicate and difficult trick a centurion ever gets to try. It isn’t written down anywhere, because every one of us does it a different way, depending on our personal style and who we learned it from. For some officers it’s the most natural thing in the world, others find it so difficult that they can never really get their recruits to swallow it. I know that I can do it, and every other man in this room knows the same or he wouldn’t be here. I also know that your bow benders won’t learn even the most basic moves properly unless we apply it to them good and hard. I can teach you how to do it if you’ll let me…’

He paused, giving his friend a long stare.

‘But?’

‘You’re a good man. Educated. Cultured. Yes, you’re a trained gladiator and you’ve killed on the battlefield enough times to show you’re a warrior. We all respect that, but…’

Marcus put his cup down, a note of irritation creeping into his voice.

‘Go on.’

‘It’s simple enough. Trick number three is about being a bastard, that’s the top and bottom of it. Your recruits have to know that given the slightest excuse you’ll come down on them so hard they’ll be reaching up to wipe their arses. And Marcus, I’m just not sure you’ve got enough bastard in you to turn these boys around, given the amount of time we’ve got.’

He glanced up as the mess door opened and a bulky figure ducked through it into the room.

‘Oh, Cocidius help me, here comes the Bear for another try at lifting a tent party out of my century.’

The next morning dawned grey and damp, with an insidious drizzle that swirled in the fitful wind and found its way beneath the 8th’s cloaks and into their armour even before the Bear’s 10th Century had stamped down the line to their place at the far end of the cohort. Frontinius, who made a point of keeping his most likely replacement as first spear fully briefed at all times, walked alongside Julius’s 5th Century as they marched down the fort’s steep road to the parade ground, his conversation with his brother officer conducted in tones too quiet for the soldiers marching alongside them to overhear.

‘So all in all you really don’t know what to make of our new commander?’

The first spear nodded wryly.

‘That’s about the size of it. He hasn’t given me any hint as to his previous experience beyond the positions he’s held previously, which wouldn’t worry me too much if his career wasn’t quite so unusual.’

Julius glanced across at him.

‘Unusual?’

‘It didn’t occur to me at first, but people like him, members of the equestrian class, they follow set paths through their lives. He was prefect of an auxiliary cohort over ten years ago by my reckoning, which would have made him about twenty-five, and that’s younger than is usual for a first command. They’re supposed to do a few years of public service to knock the rougher edges off them before they’re let loose on the army. After that he was a tribune with Twelfth Thunderbolt during the war against the Quadi, and then again with the Fifth Macedonica fighting the Marcomanni. I reckon he would have completed that last stint a couple of years ago.’

‘And after that…?’

‘Exactly. Nothing at all until he pops up here as an auxiliary prefect again. It’s all wrong, Julius, he should have gone on from his tribunate to command a five-hundred-strong cavalry wing, and by now he should be commanding a full-strength wing like our old friend Licinius, either that or be retired to public service. Instead of which he seems to be going backwards. There are two good-sized questions about our new prefect that I’d like to hear the answers to — for a start, why has he been demoted from his last declared position back to command of an infantry cohort?’

Julius nodded his agreement.

‘And what’s he been doing for the last two years?’

‘Exactly. Something doesn’t add up here, and until I know the answers to those questions I’m not going to turn my back on the man.’

Julius grunted his agreement, then raised a crafty eyebrow.

‘I meant to ask, have you had anyone in front of you asking for permission to marry since we got back from Arab Town?’

The first spear’s face brightened.

‘Funny you should ask, there was a young centurion in to see me only last night. Bright young lad, seems to have found a good woman, a widow, but young enough and with some skills that would make her a valuable person to have around the cohort. He made a persuasive case, for all that we’re only days away from marching back into blue-nose territory and he might be dead in a week. Yes, we had a good chat on the subject.’

‘And?’

Frontinius turned to face him, a mocking smile on his face.

‘Our rules? Just Sextus and Julius, old mates that enlisted on the same day and have always reserved the right to ignore rank and speak our minds to one another.’

Julius nodded.

‘Well, under normal conditions I would, as first spear, be forced to tell you that I must respect the confidential nature of the conversation. Under our rules, however, I can tell you…’

He paused for a moment, drawing out the silence as the 10th century marched past them.

‘Yes?’

‘To mind your own business, you nosy bugger!’

He stalked on to the parade ground with a grim smile at the weather and called for his centurions to brief their troops on the day’s march to Noisy Valley. Marcus turned to face the Hamians, already looking bedraggled in the persistent drifting rain, and found that, unlike on the previous day, he was the sole object of their attention. One hundred and sixty pairs of eyes were fixed on him, their message a combination of anger and misery, and he paused for a long moment before speaking.

‘Good morning, Eighth Century…’ He paused and smiled into their resentment. ‘Today you see Britannia in all its true glory. We get weather like this roughly one day in every five, you’ll be pleased to hear. Today we will be making the march to Noisy Valley, which will get you warmed up soon enough, but before we do let’s consider yesterday. We marched fifteen miles at the standard campaign pace and nobody failed to finish… even if some of you needed some encouragement along the way.’

He waited for one of the sea of stony faces to crack. Nothing.

‘Halfway through the march we conducted a surprise attack, which, unsurprisingly, didn’t go very well. You were assaulted by a century of battle-hardened soldiers and you lost. Painfully. Some of you have bruises to show for that defeat, and you’ve all got sore feet. It’s raining, you’re cold, you’re wet and you’d like nothing better than for me and my brother officers to drop dead on the spot. If you could stand here and look at yourselves with my eyes you’d see unhappy men, some of you angry, most of you just sullen. And let me tell you, let me guarantee you, it’s going to get worse. Today we march to war.’

He glanced up the line, and saw that most of the cohort’s centuries were already on the move back up the hill to the fort. Nodding to Qadir, he gestured for the 8th century to follow.

‘Chosen, get them moving! Get some breakfast into them and make sure they’re ready to march straight afterwards.’

Once the century was climbing back up the hill’s steep slope he dropped back to Qadir’s place at the column’s rear.

‘Good morning, Chosen.’

The big man inclined his head.

‘Good morning, Centurion.’

‘How does the day find our men?’

‘Truthfully, Centurion?’

‘Anything else would be to the detriment of us both.’

‘Then truthfully, Centurion, they are tired, footsore and they long for anywhere other than this living hell.’

Marcus nodded, recalling Rufius’s advice of the previous evening.

‘Exactly as I would expect. And it’s going to get worse for them before it gets better, I’m afraid. But I have only two choices, Chosen, one being to drive them through this hell while the other is to allow them to surrender to their pain and misery. No choice at all, really. They have to reach the infantryman’s sad understanding of his plight since time began.’

‘Which is, Centurion?’

‘That there’s something worse than pounding on down the road when your feet hurt, when the rain’s bucketing down and there are still twenty miles to go before stopping to build a camp for the night. They have to understand that keeping going is much better than what will happen to them if they stop.’

Qadir marched on in silence for a moment before responding.

‘And if you gain a century of infantrymen while losing their skills with the bow? We did not practise yesterday, and now we must march for most of the day.’

Marcus took a long moment to answer.

‘In all truth, Qadir, I would take what this cohort so badly needs and count the loss as an acceptable price.’

‘Acceptable for you. And for these men?’

‘I would expect the loss to be devastating to them…’

‘And you would be right.’

Marcus paused again, taking stock of the moment.

‘Qadir, my brother officers tell me that in their experience we must take this century to its limits to find their motivation, and that without motivation they will never be ready for what awaits them to the north in time. If that happens then you and I might as well cut each of our men’s throats now, and save the barbarians the trouble. If I’m going to make them into soldiers fit to march north past the wall and into enemy territory, then you and I must both be as one in our approach to their training.’

Qadir looked away from the line of their march for a moment, beads of water falling from his helmet as he strode along beside the 8th’s last rank.

‘I do not like the thought of descending to behaviour as base as that I have seen from your brother officers. I feel that it demeans these men, who have joined your army under such different circumstances to be used so… roughly, and in a cause for which they are simply not prepared. And yet…’

Marcus held his breath while the Hamian paused as if lost in thought.

‘… and yet, I see that we are trapped in this terrible place. And so I will ally myself with you in using their methods to make my men fit to survive this coming journey into darkness.’

Marcus sighed audibly with relief.

‘Qadir, I…’

‘But there is a condition I must beg you to accept. Without it all is lost to these men, whether or not they become the soldiers you so crave them to be. I must insist that we find a way to give them time to practise with their bows each day.’

The young centurion nodded.

‘I was just about to get to that.’

The cohort mustered on the parade ground again after breakfast, each century’s tents, cooking gear and rations packed on to carts that would form part of the supply train, moving in the cohort’s centre on the march. As the 8th Century marched down the hill to their place on the parade ground, Morban’s usual place at their head was occupied by Antenoch, while the standard-bearer stood with his grandson Lupus at the fort’s gate, hopping from foot to foot in his impatience.

‘Where is the dozy old bag? The cohort will be leaving in a matter of minutes and I can’t leave you here alone. Perhaps that idiot boy didn’t deliver my message…’

A young woman came into view, running up the hill past the centuries making their way down to the parade ground. She saw the waiting standard-bearer and dashed up to him, breathlessly panting out her news. Morban listened for a moment, then left the weeping child in her company and hurried down to where Marcus stood in front of the 8th’s men.

‘Centurion, the boy’s grandmother…’

Marcus listened for a moment, told the standard-bearer to take his place at the century’s head and walked briskly to the first spear’s review platform.

‘Excuse me, First Spear.’

‘Centurion?’

‘We have a problem, sir. Morban’s grandson was to stay with his grandmother in one of the local villages, but we’ve just had word that she’s died overnight. There’s no other family to leave him with, and as the son of a soldier…’

He left the sentence unfinished. Both men knew that the boy would be fair game for the locals without his last direct family member to keep them at bay. The threat of massive reprisals would ensure that nobody local was stupid enough to take fire or iron against the fort in their absence, but the victimisation or even the murder and quiet disposal of a soldier’s child would be another matter entirely. Frontinius gave the matter less than a second’s thought.

‘Bring him with us to Noisy Valley. We’ll find someone there to look after him while we go hunting barbarians in the hills.’

Morban nodded in quiet relief, pointing to the wagon bearing the century’s equipment.

‘Get on that cart, lad, sit still and don’t touch anything. Thank you, Centurion, I couldn’t have left the poor little sod here on his own.’

Marcus nodded, his mind elsewhere as the leading century started marching up the hill that separated the fort from the military road that ran to the east and west behind the line of the wall.

‘We’ll take him as far as Noisy Valley and no farther. I’m not risking him getting mixed up in a full-scale battle, and in the meantime you’re responsible for his good behaviour. That means no wagering while he’s around you, and no whoring either. Not that I expect you’ll get much of a chance with several thousand legionaries ahead of you in the queue.’

The cohort arrived at the Noisy Valley fort late in the afternoon, and was directed into temporary defences thrown up alongside the partially rebuilt wooden fortress that dominated the main road to the north. They were camped alongside the 6th legion and several other cohorts from along the wall’s length. As the Hamians gratefully slumped to the ground for a short rest before pitching their eight-man tents, Morban slapped the 8th century’s trumpeter on the shoulder with his free hand.

‘No digging for us tonight, my lad. Let’s make a beeline for the vicus, or whatever the lazy bastards have rebuilt of it, see if we can’t find a wet to wash the dust from our throats.’

Marcus put out a hand to detain him.

‘Not so fast, Standard-bearer. First we need to make sure that our new troops get their tents pitched in such a way that the first gust of wind won’t blow them away. After that I want an hour’s practice with spears and shields, and after that they’ll need to have the evening campaign routine explained to them. All of which means that you’re going to be the busiest man in the century, and that’s before you spend whatever time’s necessary to look after your grandson.’

The 8th century exercised with their spears once their camp was set up, their efforts under the tuition of the four centurions watched with amusement by the rest of the cohort and with exasperation by the first spear, who called Marcus over to him after a few minutes standing in silence beside the exercise ground.

‘Utter rubbish. You’ll not get them slinging a spear straight in anything less than a month, and we’ll be in action inside a week. Take their spears off them, and find a way to get them motivated to learn which end of their swords does the damage. If that demonstration’s any guide we’ll have to dump them on the Hamian cohort as replacements.’

The century lined up to hand their spears in to the quartermaster with broad smiles, although their relief was soon forgotten in the face of Marcus’s grim-faced statement once they were back on the parade ground. Julius, Rufius and Dubnus stood behind him, their faces dark with anger at the implied criticism of their training methods, their harsh stares scouring the century’s suddenly solemn ranks for any sign of levity.

‘You’ve had your spears taken away because you were about as much use with them as a gang of vicus drunks. Some of you seem to regard that as a victory. Your officers, on the other hand, consider it something of a disgrace. Just to be clear, any attempt to provoke the removal of your swords and shields by means of such wilful underperformance will result instead in the loss of the only thing that seems to matter to you. If you fail to improve your collective performance with your remaining infantry weapons I will have no choice but to relieve you of your bows, and turn you over to the Sixth legion’s camp prefect for general duties. You either make a bloody effort or you’ll find yourselves cleaning out the latrines on a permanent basis.’ He paused and scowled across the century’s ranks, allowing the threat to sink in properly. ‘So, sword drill, and I suggest you put some effort into it this time…’

Watching the 8th going through their paces again, Frontinius noticed Marcus nod to Qadir, motioning for the practice to continue before taking Antenoch and Morban to one side. He nudged the prefect’s arm, pointing at the three figures as they limbered up for sparring.

‘The centurion seems to have decided to work off his frustrations with a little swordplay. Watch carefully, he’s quicker than greased weasel shit once he gets going.’

The two soldiers each took up a wooden practice sword, buckled their helmets tightly and raised their shields ready to fight. Marcus, who, as the prefect was intrigued to note, was wielding a second wooden sword instead of a shield, waited in almost perfect immobility while the two men approached him from either side with slow, careful steps, clearly intending to attack their officer in a pincer movement in the hope of overwhelming him. They paused in their advances for a moment, exchanged glances and then, in a sudden flurry of movement, both men struck, Antenoch stabbing his sword at his officer’s chest while Morban swung his weapon in a vicious arc at his head.

Marcus parried the first attack while ducking under the second and shoulder-charging his standard-bearer’s shield, the impact making the older man stagger back off balance and fall back on to the ground. With one assailant momentarily out of the fight, Marcus turned on Antenoch with a speed and purpose that immediately put the clerk on the defensive, hammering a blow into the edge of his clerk’s raised shield with his left-hand weapon. As Antenoch compensated by pushing the shield round to his right, the young centurion feinted left then darted right, leaping into the air to jab his blade around the shield’s edge and into the soft flesh of his neck, pulling the blow to avoid breaking the skin but still inflicting a painful scratch. He spun away from the cursing soldier, avoiding a wild swing from Morban by a hand’s span as the standard-bearer charged back into the fight. The older man went for him with furious purpose, hacking wildly in the hope of overwhelming his defence, but Marcus simply stepped back out of range of a shield punch, parrying the blows until the short-lived power of the standard-bearer’s attack had burned out. As the pace of his attacks slowed, the centurion took the attack back to him, disarming the sweating soldier with a deft slap to the wrist of his sword arm with the flat of his blade, which left the sword hanging uselessly from the standard-bearer’s numb fingers. Morban stepped back and dropped the useless weapon, shaking his head to stop the fight. First Spear Frontinius raised a questioning eyebrow at his prefect.

‘I told you he was good, didn’t I?’

Scaurus nodded his agreement with his first spear, his eyes narrowed as he watched the young officer talking his men through the fight, pointing out the points at which he had ridden his advantage to beat them both.

‘While I find myself forced to agree with you, First Spear, I’d still like to see him fight a real swordsman. No disrespect intended, you’ve built a fine cohort here, but your men are like most other soldiers, drilled to fight and kill from behind a line of shields and not to duel like that…’

‘I’ll fight him.’

First Spear Frontinius turned with surprise, his eyebrows raised as he looked from the prefect to his bodyguard, who had previously been as silent as always in his place at the senior officer’s back.

‘Did he just say what I thought he said?’

Scaurus nodded, his lips pursed in a slight smile.

‘He doesn’t say very much, but when he does it’s invariably interesting. You want to spar with that officer?’ The German nodded, and Scaurus turned back to Frontinius. ‘With your permission, First Spear, I think your man would find Arminius here a worthy enough test of his mettle. Shall we pair them up and see what happens?’

Frontinius shrugged.

‘This should be interesting. Centurion Corvus!’

The German strode out on to the parade ground, tossing aside his cloak and tunic to reveal a torso slabbed with muscle, his chest scarred in several places and, at the point where his arm and shoulder met, dimpled with the telltale pucker of an old arrow wound. He took a practice sword from Antenoch but disdained the proffered shield, reaching instead for Morban’s blade. The standard-bearer gave up the weapon with raised eyebrows, walking around the towering bodyguard and muttering into Antenoch’s ear.

‘He fights Dimachaeri style too, eh? Fancy the odds?’

The clerk pursed his lips.

‘Look at the bloody size of him, and the state of his body. That’s a fighter if ever I saw one. I’ll have five denarii on him.’

The two men squared up, their practice swords almost touching. The German kept his eyes locked on Marcus’s and hefted the wooden weapons to take their balance, his grating voice loud in the parade ground’s sudden hush as the sweating soldiers craned their necks to see what was happening.

‘Ready?’

Marcus nodded, and the bodyguard went for him with a speed and grace that belied his size, forcing the young centurion backwards with a swift succession of attacking blows with both swords which looked, for a moment, likely to end in the Roman’s painful defeat. Adjusting quickly to the other man’s all-out style, and taking a perverse enjoyment in having his skills tested properly for the first time in months, Marcus began to match him blow for blow. Stabbing, parrying and hacking with a fluidity and skill close to matching the best the watching men had seen him muster with his blood up on the field of battle, he took the fight back to the German with single-minded intensity, pushing the bigger man back half a dozen steps with the ferocity of his counter-attack. The two men fought to and fro, all four of their swords ceaselessly hunting for an opening in the other’s defence while continuously fending off the other’s attacks. Stepping in close, his swords flung wide to deflect the Roman’s blades, the German shaped to deliver a powerful head-butt to his opponent, but Marcus, trained from his youth by men experienced in the dirtier side of combat in Rome’s savage arena fighting, saw the move coming and spun away, hooking the other man’s leg with a swinging kick and putting him on his back. The German simply rolled backwards out of the fall, regained his feet with a broad grin and charged back in with both swords, putting Marcus back on the defensive once more.

The fight became steadily more physical, as both men sought to take an advantage that their mutual swordsmanship denied them both. Punching Marcus with a fierce blow from his muscular forearm, sending the younger man staggering back with stars flashing in his vision, Arminius shaped for the kill only to grimace with pain as the Roman, thoroughly enraged at the blow’s force, danced back in and put a hobnailed boot into his knee. The two men separated for a moment and circled each other, each of them eyeing the other with a new wariness, searching the other’s face for any sign of weakness. First spear and prefect shared a glance and nodded to each other.

‘Enough!’

The prefect’s shouted command hung in the air for a moment, neither man acknowledging the order until, with distinct reluctance, the German dropped first one and then the other of the practice swords. He held out a hand to Marcus, who dropped his own swords and took the offered clasp, wincing with the force of the German’s grip. The previously blank-faced bodyguard was smiling slightly.

‘You fight well, as well as anyone I’ve crossed swords with. I’ll fight with you again.’

Marcus nodded.

‘That was the best bout I’ve had since I left… home. You’ll have to teach me a few of those moves.’

The bodyguard nodded, leaning in close to whisper in his ear.

‘I was taught by a master swordsman. When the time is right I will share what I have learned with you.’

Prefect Scaurus and the first spear took their leave of the cohort once the soldiers had settled down to the evening meal. Frontinius left Julius in command, scowling darkly at the ground around their earth-banked defences.

‘We’ll move to full campaign routine, Centurion, double patrols and nobody allowed out of the camp without your express permission. The watchword is ‘Lost’, the response is ‘Eagle’. We’ll be back in a couple of hours if this commanders’ conference goes to form, so make sure there’s something warm left over for us when the rest of you have finished filling your faces.’

Inside the fortress’s stone wall, blackened by smoke from its buildings’ destruction by burning in the face of the warband’s advance months before, the two men followed directions from the gate guard to find the headquarters. The prefect smiled wryly at the size of the new building.

‘Typical legion thinking. If the eagle’s going to live anywhere for a while it has to be housed in a building big enough for a cohort to bunk down in.

Inside the building they found two dozen or so senior officers waiting around in quiet conversation. Frontinius spoke quietly in his prefect’s ear.

‘No sign of the Second Cohort. Looks like we’ll be hanging on to the Hamians for a while yet. Oh, here we go…’

From a side room a trio of men entered the praetorium, their polished breastplates shining in the torchlight. The oldest of them, a thin man with a grey beard, nodded briefly to Scaurus, while the 6th legion’s legatus acknowledged his old friend and former first spear with a swift handshake, giving his successor a brief but openly curious stare. They walked briskly to the raised briefing podium, adorned with the 6th legion’s bull emblem, and turned to face the collected officers. Frontinius whispered in his prefect’s ear.

‘I hear he eats bread shipped all the way from Rome, and that by the time it gets here it’s so stale that he can’t get much of it down him at a sitting because it cuts his gums up so badly.’

Scaurus smiled faintly, muttering out of the side of his mouth.

‘That’s how he stays so thin. He also writes out a dozen or so orders every night before he goes to sleep, and has the officer of the guard send them out to his legates and prefects at intervals through the night to foster the illusion that he never sleeps…’

The governor addressed the gathered officers in a clear, calm voice.

‘Gentlemen, let me introduce myself. I am Ulpius Marcellus, former governor of Britannia now returned at the command of my emperor to put this wretched province straight again. For those of you that don’t know them, these men are my legion commanders, Legatus Equitius commanding Sixth Victorious, and Legatus Macrinus commanding Twentieth Valiant and Victorious. I’ve sent Legatus Metellus back south with six cohorts of the Second Augustan to keep order on the western border, while the rest of his cohorts have been divided between the Sixth and the Twentieth. That gives us a pair of over-strength legions, and a total force of fifteen thousand legionaries. Add in your auxiliaries and we comfortably outnumber the strength that our spies tell us we can expect Calgus to put into the field.’

He paused, sweeping a piercing stare across the gathered officers.

‘My predecessor seems to have spent altogether too much time in leisure, and nowhere near enough up here keeping tabs on the barbarians, as a result of which we find ourselves here today while he finds himself ordered back to Rome.’

He paused again, looking around his assembled officers.

‘Where, gentlemen, he will find himself in a distinctly unhappy position — as might we all if we fail to put down this revolt quickly and without further serious loss. This isn’t an emperor to take failure easily, gentlemen, not when Praetorian Prefect Perennis, who as some of you will know is the man standing behind the throne, discovers that his son was a casualty of the opening battle of the war. Failure is therefore not an acceptable option for any of us. These next few weeks before the winter starts to close in are going to be hard and dirty for all concerned, and by the end of this campaigning season I’m firmly expecting that we’ll have this man Calgus’s head, either on the end of a chain or in a jar headed for Rome by fast courier. Either will do. The only question that needs answering right now is how we’re going to achieve that.’

He paused again, turning to his staff officer.

‘Map.’

The map was unrolled and spread across the table in front of the senior officers. Marcellus looked around the group gathered at the table.

‘All told we have some twenty-two thousand spears to put into the field. Our intelligence, including information from some sources rather closer to Calgus than he could ever suspect, tells us that he has no more than fifteen thousand men at best, so once we get them to commit to a straight fight it’ll be over quickly enough. However, and this is going to be the moot point of this campaign, any engagement with these barbarians must, must, take place on favourable ground.’

The officers round the table nodded solemnly. The battle of Lost Eagle and its grisly aftermath for both sides were still a raw memory for them all.

‘We want Calgus to bring his fifteen thousand out on to open ground, give us time to get our twenty thousand into line and then mince his men up in the usual style. He, on the other hand, being a clever brute, wants us to advance eagerly on to ground of his choosing — forest, broken ground, anywhere that our tactics don’t work half as well — and then set his dogs loose on us from several directions. We’re going to be gathering round this table every night of the campaign, gentlemen, and I’m going to be expecting you to bring me every idea under the sun to make Calgus ignore his instincts and come out to meet us before the winter sets in, especially as he gets near the limits of his supplies. I have no intention of reporting back to the emperor that we’ve had to settle in for the winter without a victory, preferably one that ends this squalid little war here and now. So you’d all better get thinking.’

He pointed to the map, indicating Noisy Valley’s position two miles south of the junction of the north road and the military road.

‘So now we’re ready to strike north up the main road and into the mountains to the north-east, such as they are. We suspect that

Calgus has his warband camped somewhere around here, on the southern slopes of the range, hidden deep in the forests. Our first task is to find his warband, so there’ll be a broad screen of cavalry out in front of the main force probing forward, seeking contact. Once we’ve got them located the next trick will be to either draw them out into the open or, if we can’t manage that feat, fix them for long enough that Sixth and Twentieth legions can bring their strength to bear on their defences in a classic siege. While we’re doing that we’ll patrol aggressively to either flank just to make sure the locals keep their heads down and let us get on with it unmolested. That ought to give the auxiliary cohorts something to keep them out of mischief

…’