Arrows of Fury

7

It was mid-morning by the time that Felicia was ready to remove the arrow from the wounded cavalry officer. She stood over her patient, his eyes slitted in a deathly pale face as he clung to consciousness with a tenacity that gave her hope for his survival, despite the blood-crusted arrow protruding from his armpit.

‘Decurion? Decurion, can you hear me?’

The exhausted officer’s eyes flickered in her direction, his mouth opening fractionally in a hoarse whisper.

‘I hear you.’ He swallowed painfully, licking his lips.

Felicia knelt by the bed, taking one ice-cold hand in both of her own.

‘My horse…?’

She smiled despite her concern.

‘Your horse, Cornelius Felix, bit two men and kicked several more black and blue while they were getting the arrow out of him, but I’m told he’s happily chewing his way through the fort’s stock of barley even as we speak. And as for you, Decurion, you have a barbarian arrow deep in your left armpit. It seems to have missed your lung, and more importantly the artery that runs through your shoulder down your arm, but it must come out immediately. I need to clean out your wound and prevent the onset of sepsis. You’ve lost too much blood already, and you’ll lose more while I remove the arrow, but to leave it there will probably kill you anyway…’

His lips moved again, the smile touching his eyes this time.

‘Get the blasted thing out now, eh?’

She nodded mutely.

‘Do it, but promise me…’

‘Yes?’

‘If the arm has to come off…?’

‘Yes?’

‘Just kill me. I can’t ride that monster Hades one-handed…’

Shaking her head sadly, she gently squeezed the cavalryman’s right hand.

‘My oath forbids me any such act. We’ll just have to make sure this stays attached to you. Now drink this…’

She put a beaker to his lips and patiently tipped the drink into his mouth in small sips.

‘What is it…?’

‘A mixture of wine, honey and the dried and powdered sap of the poppy flower. It will make you drowsy, or possibly even put you to sleep given the amount of blood you’ve lost. What I have to do to you now is going to hurt considerably more than the pain you’re in at the moment.’

The doctor waited for a few minutes, noting the soldier’s gradually slower breathing as the drug took effect.

‘He’s asleep. Let’s move him to the table. You have to keep his arm absolutely as it is now, straight out from his body. We have no idea what the arrowhead might be touching in there…’

She supervised the orderlies as they carried the decurion from his bloodstained bed to the operating table, where so many men had laid in recent months, their wounds open to her gentle, skilful fingers. The table’s surface was criss-crossed with the scars inflicted by her knives and saws, marks left from those occasions when she had decided that the removal of a limb was a safer alternative than risking the onset of gangrene in a shattered arm or leg. The wood’s grain was rubbed smooth by the incessant scrubbing she insisted on to remove each successive man’s blood from the surface before the next soldier was laid out for her attention.

‘Keep his arm steady… that’s it. Now get him on to the table.’

With the unconscious man’s body arranged to her satisfaction, his arm held firmly at right angles from his body by one of the orderlies, she surveyed the wound carefully, noting the blood still leaking from the arrow’s wicked puncture. Stepping away from the table, she studied her instruments for a moment before selecting a pair of polished concave bronze blades, one with a blunt curved end, the other with small hooks at its end. Turning to her helpers, she addressed the man standing ready to help her by the unconscious patient’s head.

‘So, what do we know about arrow wounds, Orderly Julius?’

‘Doctor, the arrow is often barbed and will cause more damage during removal due to further tearing of the flesh inside the wound.’

‘And so the usual method for the removal of such an arrow is…?’

To push the arrow’s head out of the body through a second wound opened for the purpose, when this can be achieved without risk. This allows the arrow to be broken in half and safely removed.’

‘And given this arrow’s location?’

‘It would be impossible to make a second opening. The arrow must be withdrawn through the original wound.’

She smiled encouragement.

‘Good. Have you carried out this procedure before?’

‘No, Doctor, I have not.’

‘Very well, you shall have your first opportunity shortly. From the look of the wound this is a broad-headed arrow, with only two barbs, and not one of ours. We can be thankful for that small mercy, can we not, Julius?’

The orderly responded dutifully.

‘Certainly, Doctor. A flat-bladed arrow opens a pocket-shaped wound, which will close itself well enough as a result of the flesh swelling in response to the arrow’s intrusion. A wound made by the three-bladed arrowheads used by our archers will not close, however, and requires much more attention during recovery.’

‘And…?’

‘And… it has three barbs…?’

‘Rather than two. Exactly. So, back to this particular patient. Our decurion’s arrow’s upper blade and barb may be close to the large blood vessel that runs along the shoulder and down into the arm, and if we snag that vessel with the uppermost barb we will have a dead man on this table inside a minute or so. I’m going to use these…’ She lifted the bronze blades to display them to the two men. ‘… to prevent that from happening. These two items are called a dioclean cyathiscus, because their use was invented by the Greek Diocles.’

She bent over the patient, sliding the first blade into the wound, probing gently for the arrowhead.

‘There it is. Now I’m pushing the blade up and over the barb. It’s smooth and blunt, so there shouldn’t be a risk to the blood vessel. That’s it… now there’s a tiny hole in the top of the blade, which I’m going to engage with the point of the barb… got it. That barb is now harmless to the patient. Now the other blade goes in… see? I engage the tiny hooks over the first blade, like so… and I can now pull the arrow from the wound, with the second blade both providing the traction and keeping the first blade in place over the barb. That’s the worst part over with, and not too much more blood spilt either.’

She looked at Julius.

‘There’s another set of blades over there, go and get them. We’ve managed to protect the blood vessel, so now it’s your turn to make the other barb safe.’

The arrow was out of the wound a minute later, the orderly having made a decent fist of engaging its other barb before ceding control of the extraction to Felicia. She drew the vicious iron blade smoothly and slowly from its incision, looking critically at the missile before putting it to one side.

‘There’s a memento for our cavalryman when he wakes up. Now for this wound.’

She explored the wound carefully with blunt-nosed forceps, pulling out a scrap of cloth from deep inside the decurion’s armpit and holding it up for the orderlies to see.

‘See, a fragment of his tunic, punched into the wound by the force of the arrow’s impact. We must never leave such an object inside a wound, it will cause sepsis, possibly gross infection, and frequently end in the death of our patient. Especially a man as weak as this from loss of blood. So, Orderly Julius, what does Celsus advise us to do now?’

The orderly looked up for a second, remembering his long hours of reading the textbooks that Felicia had lent to him.

‘Doctor, we must pack the wound with lint soaked in vinegar to stop the bleeding, and pure honeycomb to assist the healing.’

‘Correct. And the vinegar will also help to prevent infection of the wound. How long do you think we should wait before sewing up the wound?’

The man’s face reddened.

‘In truth, Doctor, I do not know.’

She smiled.

‘And you will not guess, which does you credit. We’ll make a medic of you yet, Julius. The answer is that we will decrease the size of the wound’s packing with every change, which will be twice a day, until we can see that the flesh inside is healthy in colour and feel, and that the interior of the wound is closing. Only then can we safely close the wound. Well done, colleagues, I do believe that this man will live to fight another day.’

The 8th scouted through the forest without any further result for the next three hours, emerging out of the trees and into the bright daylight at midday, more or less. The soldiers took their meal in the shelter of the forest’s edge and then slung their pack poles over their shoulders, heading for the meeting point that had been agreed at a brisk march. They saw no sign of any enemy during their ten-mile trek across the rolling country north of the wall, and overhauled the legion after an hour’s progress.

The auxiliary cohorts were out front, sweeping forward on a broad front behind a cavalry screen provided by the 6th Legion’s cavalrymen. The legion itself remained in column of march, albeit that their pace was slowed to accommodate the auxiliaries’ cautious progress. The 8th Century marched up the column’s length, steadfastly ignoring the inevitable barrage of insults thrown at their backs by the legionaries, and Marcus snapped off smart salutes to each cohort’s first spear in turn. As they passed the column’s head, past the thicket of standards that led the legion on the march, a single horseman rode out alongside them, his horse trotting easily alongside the running soldiers. Marcus had recognised his former prefect the moment his horse had peeled away from the legion’s officers, and his salute was accompanied by a smile of genuine pleasure. Equitius leaned down from his saddle, throwing him a return salute.

‘Centurion. I saw the colour of your men’s shields and guessed that you might be Tungrians. I’ll assume that you’ve been undertaking some private scouting mission for Prefect Scaurus, to judge from the haste with which you’re tearing off into the distance.’

Marcus stepped closer to the horse, almost rubbing his armoured shoulder against its flank as he lowered his voice to ensure privacy.

‘We’ve been scouting the ground to the north of the north road crossroads, Legatus, and keeping out of the way, if you know what I mean…’

Equitius nodded sagely.

‘A good choice by your prefect, given the continued interest in your possible whereabouts. And…?’

Marcus handed him the tiny pendant, waiting as the other man turned it over in his hand.

‘A piece of barbarian jewellery. It means nothing to me…’

The centurion took the piece back, dropping it into the pouch on his belt.

‘Nor to me, Legatus, but Prefect Scaurus’s bodyguard tells us he’s seen another exactly the same north of the wall. Far to the north…’

Equitius nodded again, a new understanding dawning in his eyes.

‘I see. Well, in that case I won’t detain you. I’d imagine that your prefect will know well enough what to make of this interesting snippet of intelligence without my interference, given his experience. Gentlemen…’

He gestured to the land beyond the legion’s lead cohort.

‘Your comrades are out there, about a mile in front of us. They shouldn’t be too hard to find, they’re the fellows poking their spears into every bush on a two-mile front.’

As chance would have it, the first unit the century encountered was the 2nd Tungrian cohort. Mindful of the warnings not to advertise his presence, Marcus felt a frisson of uncertainty as he looked for an officer to ask where the first cohort might be found. The centurion he approached, rendered anonymous by the stark lines of his helmet’s cheek guards, took one look and grinned triumphantly.

‘I remember you, we’ve met before! You’re… Two Knives, that’s it!’

The Tungrians built a hurried camp alongside the 2nd Cohort, the Cugerni cohort from Aelian Bridge and three cohorts of the 6th Legion. The turf walls were raised quickly, and to a foot less than the regulation height since the prefects wanted their men to be fresh for the fight. First Spear Frontinius sent his men to dinner once their section of the rampart was complete. Marcus sat with Qadir and Antenoch, the latter casting dark stares at a chastened Lupus, who had been discovered, hungry and thirsty, beneath a tent on the century’s wagon.

‘The little bastard must have sneaked himself on to the cart when we were getting ready to pull out from Noisy Valley.’ The clerk’s exasperation with the child’s desperation to be with the century had been all too evident, as had Morban’s mortification when his presence had been discovered. Lupus had still been wet eyed an hour after his discovery, as the two men had taken turns to tell him just how stupid he was.

‘I caught the little sod grinning to himself when he thought no one was looking,’ Morban had confided to Marcus, ‘so I clipped his ear again to teach the cheeky bugger a lesson.’

The child was sitting solemn faced between Antenoch and Qadir, the object of great curiosity for the rest of the century, who kept wandering past in ones and twos until their attention became tiresome, and their centurion ordered them into their tents.

‘There’s no way to get him back to the Valley,’ Marcus had told a tight-lipped Antenoch, ‘you’ll just have to keep an eye on him.’

‘And when we run into the blue-noses?’

‘He’ll just have to hide somewhere.’

The clerk had shrugged angrily, dragging the protesting child to his tent by one ear with dark threats of fearsome retribution for any further infringement of the rules laid down for him. First Spear Frontinius, surprisingly enough, had been more relaxed on the subject than anyone else in the boy’s chain of command. Sitting at his meal with Julius, he had shrugged when the subject was raised.

‘What can we do about it now? Nothing. The lad’s going to end up as a soldier in any case, he’s just getting an earlier start than the rest of us. Anyway, he’ll be safe enough for tonight at least. I doubt that anyone’s going to be bothering us with the rest of the Sixth less than two miles to the north and in a particularly bad temper, given that we get to take revenge for the Frisians while they get to stand guard.’

Julius smiled sourly.

‘I’ll happily swap, if that’ll make them happier. Most of them are replacements for the men that died at Lost Eagle, and we’ve already seen one decent fight this summer…’

Frontinius laughed quietly.

‘It doesn’t work that way, though, does it? We’re blooded, as are the boys from the Sixth who’ll be fighting alongside us. Legatus Equitius has put the first team into this fight, so it’s up to us to justify his confidence.’

Julius shook his head, squinting into the setting sun’s dying rays.

‘Just as long as the bloody Sixth’s cohorts actually come to the fight.’ He stretched his massive frame, tired from the day’s march. ‘So what did young Corvus find in the woods that was so significant?’

Frontinius shook his head.

‘No idea. Some piece of jewellery or other. The prefect took one look and went into a huddle with his man the German. He’s gone over to the Sixth’s main body for a chat with the legatus, so doubtless we’ll find out soon enough. Anyway, off to dinner with you, and then get your lads’ heads down for the night. We’ll be up before dawn, and I want everyone nice and fresh.’

In the quiet time after dinner, as the troops made their last preparations for battle before turning in for the night, a strange officer appeared in the Tungrian lines. Following directions from the patrolling sentries, he made his way to the 8th Century’s row of tents and sought out Marcus. The two men stood talking in the camp’s torchlight for a few minutes, then clasped their arms before the stranger turned to head back to his own part of the camp. The young centurion watched him go for a moment, then walked across to the 1st Century’s section of the camp, seeking out the first spear with a worried look on his face. Frontinius listened impassively to his story, then sent for Julius.

‘You met a pair of Second Cohort centurions at Arab Town, when you went to pick up our replacements?’

Julius scratched his head, still itching after a full day beneath his crested helmet.

‘Decent enough lads, as I recall. Tertius and…’

‘Appius.’

‘Yes, that’s it. Our brother officer Marcus has just had a visit from Tertius. They met on the march today, by pure good fortune. Tertius wanted to warn Marcus that the Second Cohort’s prefect is convinced he’s the son of a disgraced Roman senator, and that he’s recruited this Appius to find him and deliver proof of his whereabouts. The Bear told me that he was around our lines at Noisy Valley only a few minutes after I sent the Eighth out on night exercise.’

Julius frowned, shaking his head at the apparent inevitability of the net closing around them.

‘After which Prefect Furius will denounce the fugitive, take the credit for his discovery, and do his level best to have us all nailed up alongside Two Knives?’

Frontinius nodded.

‘Exactly. From what I’ve heard he might even have a go at sticking it to Prefect Scaurus.’

Julius frowned.

‘Why would this Tertius be so keen to tell us this? Surely he’d be better off just keeping his mouth shut?’

Frontinius acknowledged the point, reaching for his helmet and vine stick.

‘It’s a longer story than we’ve got time for now. Suffice to say that Centurion Tertius has quite a good reason not to be all that fond of his new prefect. I’m off to the Sixth Legion’s lines now, there’s a command conference. We’ll finish this discussion later, but for the time being let’s keep Centurion Corvus under as much cover as possible.’

The detachment’s senior officers gathered in the command tent, waiting for Tribune Antonius to make his entrance. The auxiliary cohorts’ prefects and first spears rubbed shoulders with three hard-faced legion senior centurions and a pair of junior tribunes, the latters’ equestrian status clear from the thin purple strip on both men’s tunics. Antonius entered the tent a moment later, and every eye was upon the senior tribune as he walked to the briefing table to announce his intended plan of attack. He stepped up to the table, pointing to the rough map sketched on its surface and speaking in a clear, confident voice.

‘This ought to be straightforward enough, I should think. There are reported to be about fifteen hundred of them camped on that hill. They know we’re here, so they will be ready, but they probably haven’t eaten all day and they’ve already fought one pitched battle. With six cohorts we outnumber them by nearly three to one, so good enough odds for an assault, I’d say. Nothing too fancy, unless anyone’s got any better ideas — we simply break in, we put them to the sword, and Calgus has one less warband to play with.’

He paused, looking around the tent at the gathered officers.

‘I’m reminded that it’s usual for auxiliary cohort commanders to be offered the first crack at the enemy in this sort of situation.’

I’ll bet he’s been reminded of that old tradition, mused Frontinius inwardly. In fact I’ll bet he had a queue of centurions falling over each other to remind him of it. ‘So, gentlemen, it’s up to you. Will the Tungrians and Cugerni lead the line for this action?’

Prefect Furius stepped forward, nodding decisively, to the amazement of the other two prefects and their first spears. Neuto’s face froze into immobility, only his eyes betraying his surprise.

‘Yes, Tribune, I think you’ll find that we’re more than up to the task. I propose that we make up the first wave, and that your legion infantry be kept in close reserve, ready to assist us if the going gets difficult.’

Antonius nodded approvingly, a brief smile twitching his lips.

‘Well said, Prefect Furius, excellent spirit. Very well, I suggest that you take some time between the three of you to lay out your battle plan. The Sixth Legion will back you up in whatever you decide. Thank you, gentlemen.’

Outside the tent a thin-lipped Scaurus put a hand on Furius’s arm, his anger clearly boiling over.

‘Next time you decide to do something that stupid I’d appreciate some bloody warning!’

Furius bristled indignantly, and the Cugerni prefect walked away a few paces, studiously ignoring the two men as the 2nd Tungrians’ prefect pointed a finger at his colleague.

‘Stupid? I think you should explain yourself, Rutilius Scaurus.’

Scaurus held his ground, his voice lowered to avoid the words carrying back into the command tent.

‘When Antonius offered us first place in the line he was simply doing what the legions always do, putting dispensable auxiliaries to his front to soak up the worst of the casualties, but what you offered him went a long way beyond that. You’ve just let him off the hook for this battle’s conduct, and given him a cast-iron excuse for holding his cohorts back as long as he likes. We’re not four thousand men attacking fifteen hundred any more, in fact we’re not much better than evenly matched unless Antonius throws his men in alongside us, and he won’t do that until we’ve already got the barbarians beaten. So we’d better do some quick thinking as to how this battle’s going to be fought, because I don’t think a frontal assault is going to be good enough.’ He caught the lurking Cugerni prefect’s eye and raised his voice. ‘I suggest you both come to my tent in an hour.’

He summoned Frontinius with a jerk of the head and stalked away, his mind working fast, heading back to his own cohort’s lines and talking as he walked.

‘So you’ve got another chance at glory, First Spear Frontinius. We’re to assault the hill fort with the other auxiliary cohorts while the Sixth Legion sits on its backside and watches us go about it. I’d imagine that young Antonius couldn’t have imagined a better result if he’d tried.’

The First Spear shook his head in disbelief.

‘We get to attack a barbarian warband uphill, into prepared defences, while the legion cohorts sit and laugh at us from behind their shields. We might win, but it’ll be a bloody victory. I’d take Lost Eagle over the goat-fuck this could turn into if Cocidius decides we’ve had enough divine favour for one lifetime.’

Scaurus nodded.

‘Unless we can turn their flank, and avoid a frontal attack, I’m forced to agree with you.’

Frontinius snorted.

‘Turn their flank? Unlikely, since they’re defending a circular position.’

They walked into the prefect’s tent, and Scaurus slumped into a chair, gesturing the first spear into the other.

‘I take your point. Talk me through it, then. You’re the leader of this particular warband. How do you go about defending yourself when the Romans come to play?’

Frontinius scratched a circle in the tent’s dirt floor.

‘They’ll assume that we’re coming from the south, since they know well enough that we’re camped here. They’ve not had the time to put up any kind of palisade, so if it was me in command of that rabble I’d line them up behind the southern side of the earth rampart, ready to fight but safe from any artillery we might have with us. Then I’d post a few men on top of the wall, perhaps four or five each to north, south, east and west, to watch for our approach. He knows that a force this size can’t approach silently, so a few men with sharp eyes and ears ought to be enough to warn him of an advance from any direction. After that it’d be simple enough to move his force around the wall to match our point of attack. And, when we do show our hands, he’s got time to get any field defences he’s prepared into place, sharpened stakes, tribuli, that sort of thing. If we had any sense we’d just sit back and wait for them to give up for lack of food and water.’

‘And if we split our forces?’

‘He splits his, and the basic problem remains unchanged.’

Scaurus nodded slowly.

‘So the watchers on the wall are the key. If they fail to give a warning, the warband remains oriented on our most likely line of advance.’

Frontinius glanced across at him sharply.

‘Yes?’

‘Well… I was just thinking about the Eighth Century…’

Frontinius nodded unhappily.

‘So was I. We’ve got a problem with Centurion Corvus’s visibility already, and I suspect your idea’s about to make it worse.’

Five minutes later the two men walked into the 8th Century’s section of the camp and sought out Marcus, quickly outlining the prefect’s idea to the young centurion.

‘Could it work?’

Marcus nodded slowly.

‘I think so, Prefect. There’s a man who’ll have a better judgement than mine, though.’

He called for Qadir. The chosen man mulled the idea for a moment, and then he too nodded.

‘Yes, we can do this. But not wearing armour.’

He held up a hand to silence the first spear’s reaction.

‘Please believe me, First Spear Frontinius, we can only perform this task if all conditions are right. We must be in position at exactly the right moment, when the rising sun lights up the men on the earth wall. We must reach that position completely undetected, or we will lose the element of surprise. And to do this we must not be burdened with your heavy mail shirts, helmets and shields. It would be impossible for us to make a silent approach carrying all that weight, and your plan, Prefect, depends on our being as silent as a fox hunting across the desert at night.’

Frontinius pulled a sceptical face.

‘And if the barbarians discover you? What will you do against hundreds of them without your equipment?’

The tall chosen man returned his stare without blinking for several seconds.

‘First Spear, in the Eighth Century you have one hundred and sixty of the best archers in the world at your command. Every one of us is capable of putting three arrows into a man-sized target at one hundred paces in less time than it would take a man to run the distance. It would be a brave warrior that could run into that.’

The prefect looked at Marcus questioningly.

‘Do you agree?’

‘Yes, sir. I suggest we wear our cloaks to cover up our tunics, but otherwise it should work well enough… if we can deal with their flank sentries undetected.’

Scaurus took a deep breath.

‘In that case, First Spear, I suggest we go and speak to my fellow prefects. Although whether Gracilus Furius will appreciate our pulling his balls out of the fire is debatable.’

As it happened, both Furius and the Cugerni prefect agreed with the plan readily enough, while Tribune Antonius picked a piece of lint from the broad senatorial stripe that decorated the right shoulder of his tunic and smiled in quiet amusement at the contrast between this quiet acceptance and the man’s bluster of an hour before. He dismissed the officers to their preparations with a last quiet word of encouragement.

‘Well, gentlemen, you’d better go and warn your centurions that tomorrow starts early and will end in victory. I’m looking forward to seeing the cohorts that won us the battle of the Lost Eagle in action again.’

Appius waited until well after dark before leaving his tent, with both cohorts bedded down for the night and the sentries’ attention turned mainly outside the marching fort’s earth wall. Dressed in his dark leggings and tunic, and keeping to the shadows, he made swift and silent progress through the camp and into the 1st Cohort’s lines, slipping from the shadow of one tent to the next with a careful eye open for the patrolling soldiers, all the time keeping the other closed to protect it from the torches providing patchy illumination for the rows of tents. Within minutes he had found the tents housing the Hamians, slinking noiselessly up their line until he reached the spot where he estimated the centurion’s tent would be positioned. Worming his way round the tent, he lifted the front flap fractionally, peeking into the darkened interior with the previously closed eye wide open. A single body was lying rolled up in a blanket, a centurion’s helmet laid alongside the bed with a vine stick next to it. He slipped quietly inside the tent and across the grass floor to the neatly folded pile of clothes that awaited the young officer’s wakening, ignoring the wooden chest at Marcus’s feet for fear of a noisy hinge waking the sleeping man.

Running his hands across the garments, he encountered a hard object, the prick of a pin to his finger telling him that it was the cloak pin he had picked up from the floor of the Arab Town officers’ mess. He pulled the metal disc from its hiding place beneath the man’s cloak and grinned to himself in triumph, slipping it into his pocket and moving silently back to the tent’s entrance. Opening the flap a fraction, he froze into immobility as a patrolling sentry padded past, the man’s attention clearly elsewhere since the slight movement went unnoticed. When the soldier was twenty paces farther down the line of tents the intruder slipped out of the small opening, leaving the sleeping centurion none the wiser as to his presence.

The cohorts mustered for their short march to the hill fort an hour before first light, hundreds of torches blazing out into the darkness. Marcus walked with Qadir as the chosen man checked his men’s equipment in the flickering light, watching as the Hamian and his watch officer took each man’s bow in turn and tested its draw.

‘It is customary,’ the big man had told him. ‘They expect us to examine every man’s bow before we use them in battle. If I were to ignore the ritual they would fear some form of bad luck befalling them. Besides, better for a man’s bowstring to part here than in the heat of battle.’

Dubnus walked down to the 8th’s place at the rear of the Tungrians’ column, smiling grimly at the sight of Marcus in his cloak, the heavy wool held closed with a borrowed bronze pin. He glanced at Antenoch, noting the clerk’s sombre demeanour.

‘What’s wrong with him? Don’t tell me he’s getting nervy before a fight for the first time in his life?’

His friend frowned in the flickering torchlight.

‘No, nothing like that. My cloak pin’s gone missing and he’s blaming himself. I’ve told him it’s my fault, it probably fell off last night, so it’ll either be trampled into the mud or safely tucked away in some lucky soldier’s pack.’

His friend grimaced his sympathy.

‘Everyone in the cohort knows it’s yours, so if it’s found it’ll come back. And besides, you’re better off with that bronze pin this particular morning. It’s just a shame you’ve no armour underneath the cloak.’

Marcus returned the smile with a raised eyebrow and lifted the heavy wool to reveal his mail shirt.

‘We haven’t all given up on the virtues of a good strong defence. Once the blue-noses realise what’s happening they’ll come across that fort like a pack of dogs after raw meat, and someone’s going to have to deal with the men that dodge our arrows.’

His former chosen man nodded solemnly.

‘We’ll be with you as quickly as possible.’

Marcus tapped the hilts of his swords.

‘And until then I’ll be getting some practice with these. Just don’t take too long.’

He shook hands with Morban, detailed by the first spear to remain behind and look after Lupus, much to his disgust. Frontinius had ignored his protests, waving him away dismissively.

‘It’s not as if a standard’s going to make much difference in this instance, and you should have made sure he was being cared for. Grin and bear it, Standard-bearer, because it isn’t going to change.’

The auxiliary cohorts led the column out of their temporary camp in a blaze of torchlight, making their way across the intervening ground between the marching camp and the hill fort at a brisk pace. The 8th Century, dressed in their dark cloaks and without armour or shields, slipped in quietly behind the last of the three auxiliary cohorts, keeping back far enough to be sure that the torchlight would not betray their presence to any lurking scouts. Marcus and Qadir watched from the darkness behind their comrades as the cohorts paraded for the assault before the hill fort’s southern rampart, the centurions marshalling their men with bellowed orders.

‘Is it always this way? They’re making enough noise to summon the dead from their resting places.’

Marcus shook his head despite the darkness.

‘No, they’re making a special effort to get noticed. Once the warband have taken the bait we can get moving.’

They waited for a long moment before Qadir tugged at his centurion’s sleeve, pointing as vague figures appeared on the wall in the pale golden light of the cohorts’ torches.

‘There. On the wall! There must be hundreds of them.’

Marcus strained his eyes, watching as men appeared along the length of the fort’s southern rampart.

‘Yes, and there will be many more hidden behind the wall. A target for every arrow we have and more besides. Follow me!’

Marcus led the 8th away into the deeper darkness, scouting away to the west around the fort’s curving earth wall, moving slowly to ensure that the century stayed together as they crossed the rough ground. When he judged the distance they had moved away from the main force was sufficient he stopped the advance with a soft command to Qadir, and the Hamians settled down to wait for the dawn. In the distance they could clearly hear the sounds of men being prepared for a fight, shouts of command and the occasional blare of a trumpeter’s horn, all the while answered by the harsh cries of the barbarians waiting for them. Qadir spoke quietly into his ear.

‘There must be thousands of the savages, to judge from their noise. If this goes badly then ours will not be the only lives lost this day. I have read about assaults on defended positions like this, and I fear your friends will pay a steep price to take that ground.’

Marcus nodded into the darkness, his face grim as he searched the invisible horizon for any sign of the coming dawn.

‘We’d best not miss the mark, then.’

In the space of two minutes a subtle difference in the sky above the fort’s earth wall became clear to the waiting soldiers, the beginnings of a gentle change of hue in the night sky to the east. Within another five minutes the first real hint of dawn tinged the slowly retreating darkness with a faint pink hue. Marcus stared intently up the slope, sensing Qadir doing the same at his shoulder without having to look round.

‘There.’

He followed the other man’s pointing arm, seeing a silhouette against the faint glow.

‘And another.’

The shape of a shaggy-haired warrior moved across the dawn’s faint glow as he crossed the earth wall’s surface to speak with the first man spotted. They stood facing the south, ignoring their guard duty to focus on the likely point of attack. Qadir murmured quietly into Marcus’s ear.

‘We are still deep in darkness down here, so they see nothing and neglect their given task. They speak of the fight to come at their front gate, and perhaps their desire to be part of that, rather than this less than noble duty. Either that or they wonder if they might still slip away into the dawn unnoticed…’

Marcus nodded again.

‘Can your men take them down with this much light?’

Even in the gloom he saw the white of his chosen man’s teeth bared in a fierce smile.

‘We can, but we need better light for the next task. Besides, I expected more than these two. A short while longer would be wise, I think?’

Marcus whispered agreement, and the two men waited while the glow of the eastern horizon slowly brightened. He was on the verge of ordering the attack when another silhouette climbed up the fort’s slope, seeming to rise up out of the earth in front of them, and joined the other two men, now clearly outlined against a pink dawn sky.

‘He must have been at the foot of the slope, perhaps praying silently to his gods?’

Marcus snorted mirthlessly.

‘Emptying his bowels, more likely. It’s time. Another five minutes and they’ll have enough light to see us. Antenoch, stay here to guide the Ninth Century to us once the excitement starts. I don’t want to risk them missing their way in the dark and leaving us without any means of fighting back if the barbarians get past our arrows.’

Qadir nodded, muttering a quiet command to the dozen archers he had picked out for this critical first task. Still indistinct to Marcus’s eyes, their capes merging with the fort’s deep shadow, they nocked arrows to their bows and took up the first slack. Marcus nodded to his chosen man.

‘Now.’

Pulling back their bowstrings until the weapons made tiny creaking sounds under the strain, the archers made the last adjustments to their points of aim, waiting for Qadir’s command. The chosen man paused for a long breath to allow them to settle, then hissed a terse command. The barbarian sentries staggered under the impact of a dozen arrows, all three slumping to the ground as the humming note of the bowstrings died away, hopefully unheard from within the fort. Marcus drew his cavalry sword and bounded forward up the slope, reaching the top in thirty seconds of scrambling climb, then dropped on to his chest and hugged the earth wall’s parapet alongside the fallen barbarians. One of the men was quietly choking on his own blood in the dawn’s silence, his bubbling breaths silenced by a swift stroke of the blade across his throat.

From the wall’s vantage point the enemy camp was laid out beneath him, their fires still burning across the area enclosed by the circular rampart. In the dawn’s pale light, with the sun still below the forested horizon, the mass of the enemy gathered 250 paces away on the slope of the hill fort’s southern wall was an indistinct seething wall of shaggy warriors baying for blood. Only the warband’s front rank was standing on the earth wall’s parapet, presumably to protect the remainder of the warband against the possibility that the legion artillery’s bolt throwers might yet make an unwelcome appearance. The remainder were gathered in the southern rampart’s protection for the time being. Marcus could clearly hear the shouts of their leaders, building their men up for the bloodletting to come and obviously determined to make the invaders pay dearly for every foot gained. Scanning the wall to the east and south, he quickly spotted the expected groups of sentries still watching the ground to their front, clearly still unaware of the threat to their rear. Crawling back to the edge of the rampart, he beckoned Qadir and his selected archers to join him, muttering into the big man’s ear.

‘I need you to take down the other two groups of sentries…’

He pointed out the fresh targets to Qadir, who swiftly detailed a target to each of his men.

‘… but two arrows each may not be enough for a silent kill. I suggest you bring up the rest of the century, and have them ready to start shooting the second the sentries are down.’

Qadir nodded, and waved the rest of the century forward to just below the rampart’s lip. Grim faced, they nocked arrows and held their bows pointing downwards, ready to lift, draw and shoot. Marcus looked at Qadir one last time.

‘Ready?’

The chosen man nodded.

‘Shoot.’

Qadir jerked a hand forward to unleash his picked marksmen’s arrows. The sentries fell under the Hamians’ volley, one man clearly attempting to call out a warning despite his wounds, but the clamour of both the waiting cohorts and the warband’s imprecations drowned out his efforts long enough for another arrow to slam into his back and drop him face down on to the wall’s dried mud. As the sentries fell the remainder of the 8th’s men scrambled up the last few paces of climb, quickly forming two lines with their bows held ready to shoot, every one of them now staring at Qadir in readiness for his order. Without waiting for permission, Qadir spread his arms to indicate that the whole century was to shoot, then pivoted to point at the mass of warriors unwittingly waiting under the threat of their bows.

The Hamians’ first volley of arrows arced down on to the unsuspecting barbarians out of the dark western sky. Dozens of men fell, some dead before they hit the ground but most of them screaming out their sudden agony as the barbed iron slammed deep into their heads, necks and chests. Even as the first victims reeled under the shock of impact another volley punched down into their ranks, taking a fresh toll of their strength as the archers’ still uncomprehending victims fell with blood frothing from their horrific wounds. Marcus grinned wolfishly, pointing at the enemy warriors with his cavalry sword.

‘Keep them shooting! Pour it on!’

Qadir nodded without taking his eyes off the target as he nocked another arrow and sent it into the warband’s screaming mass, shouting to his men to rain arrows on to the still-defenceless barbarians. Marcus’s eyes sought and found the 8th’s trumpeter.

‘Sound the advance. Blow, man, blow!’

As the sweet notes of the call to advance sounded above the warband’s howls, he drew his short gladius and held it alongside the longer cavalry weapon, testing the weight and balance of the blades in readiness for what he knew must come soon enough. Already the warband’s rear ranks were struggling to regain some semblance of order, those men with shields sheltering behind them as best they could while fighting their way through the human wreckage of the 8th’s stricken victims. A lone warrior broke away from the pack and sprinted towards the archers with his shield held close to his body, followed over the next few seconds by several more, the men’s swords glinting in the dawn’s pale light as they charged across the gap between the Hamians and their targets in a growing tide of fury. Marcus turned back to find Qadir still pulling arrows from his quiver and loosing them into the warband with impressive speed.

‘Keep shooting! I’ll deal with anyone that gets through!’

The chosen man nodded grimly, lowering his bow a fraction to shoot an arrow into the legs of the closest barbarian before shouting a command over his shoulder.

‘Front rank, target the runners. Rear rank, keep shooting!’

As Marcus watched, his swords raised in their familiar stance with the blade points level, the front rank took aim at their attackers and loosed a volley of arrows that dropped half of them with head and leg injuries. A warrior who had been brave enough to attack without the protection of a shield reeled under the impact of half a dozen arrows and toppled to the ground without ever breaking stride, his legs kicking even as he sprawled full length in blood-slickened grass. Even with half the century now focused on their defence, they were still shooting hundreds of arrows into the defenceless warband every minute, giving the cohorts priceless moments of opportunity to smash through their defence of the hill fort’s walls.

‘You!’

The trumpeter jerked his eyes from the charging barbarians and on to his centurion with a guilty start.

‘Keep sounding the advance. If they break through to the archers you will drop that horn, pull your sword and defend them to the death.’

The other man nodded jerkily, putting the trumpet back to his lips and drawing breath. Marcus turned back to their attackers, judging that the survivors had closed to within thirty paces. He shouted over his shoulder to Qadir over the trumpeter’s renewed efforts, readying himself for the first clash.

‘I’m going down on to the dance floor to try my luck. Try not to shoot me!’

‘What?’

The chosen man paused in mid-shot as his centurion stepped down the earth wall and out into the space between the front rank and the charging barbarians, fewer with each volley that ripped at their tattered ranks but gathering strength with every second as more men fought their way out of the warband’s milling chaos to run towards the 8th’s position on the earth wall. He drew the arrow back to the limit of the weapon’s capacity, forcing his strength into its stressed wood-and-bone frame, waited a second to allow his target to run on to the point of aim, then loosed the missile into the warrior’s face at less then twenty paces, skimming the arrow’s point across the top of the barbarian’s shield and squarely through one eye socket. The tribesman spun to the ground with the arrow’s immense impact, only half of the shaft protruding from his otherwise undamaged face.

Marcus forced his fascinated attention from Qadir’s victim to the next-closest attacker, watching as two, then three arrows slammed into the man’s shield, heavy iron heads punching through the layered wood with ease at such close range. The warrior’s arm was probably pinned to his board by at least one of the arrows, his blood flowing down the inner bowl, but from the wide-eyed rage contorting the man’s features it wasn’t going to hamper the damage he would do if he fought his way through to the Hamians. Another arrow slammed through the attacker’s calf but he staggered on, charging towards the centurion with his long sword sweeping down in a vicious blow at the unshielded officer.

Marcus stepped to one side with an easy grace, caught the barbarian’s blade with his own long-bladed spatha and steered it away to his right, pushing his attacker’s right arm across his body to open up his unshielded right side before stepping in fast, hooking his short-bladed gladius round to punch hard into the warrior’s ribs, then straightening to shrug the grievously wounded man off his blade. Another man charged in to attack him from the left, too close for Marcus to reorient himself in time but giving him enough time to see the pair of arrows protruding from the warrior’s left shoulder. The limb would be pinned in place by the arrows’ unyielding intrusion, useless for anything better than holding the man’s shield in place. Diving to the ground, he scythed the spatha in under the shield’s immobile defence, severed the warrior’s calf muscle and rolled back on to his feet, leaving the staggering cripple to the Hamians’ bows.

A flight of arrows whipped past Marcus and into the oncoming barbarians, close enough that he heard the breathy whistle of the closest as it flicked past his ear. Several more tribesmen went down with wounds to their heads and legs, but enough had survived to narrow his eyes in calculation as to which would be his next combat. The two leading runners made his mind up for him, drawn to his cross-crested helmet’s dull shine in the early morning sun, one of the pair a split second in front of his companion with his eyes fixed wide in the fierce joy of combat. Marcus’s thrown gladius spun one precisely judged revolution through the dawn’s chill air before embedding itself in his throat and dropping him choking into the dew-soaked grass. Parrying the other man’s sword blow with the blade of his spatha, the centurion dropped to one knee to grasp his fallen comrade’s long sword by its carved bone hilt, lifting it to deflect the warrior’s next attack before jabbing the spatha’s blade up into his attacker’s jaw. After an instant of resistance the blade penetrated the roof of the barbarian’s mouth and sank deep into his brain. He staggered backwards out of the combat, his eyes rolling up as he sagged lifelessly to the ground.

Recovering his footing, Marcus saw a trio of warriors closing on him fast, and beyond them another half-dozen advancing with their shields raised, and realised with a sickening lurch that he had allowed the heady exhilaration of combat to put him in extreme danger. A fresh wave of energy washed through the young officer as he steadied himself to meet the threat, his vision seeming to narrow and darken slightly as his body fed every usable drop of blood to his muscles. Nostrils flaring to suck in air, he rose on to the balls of his feet as if preparing to dance as the first three men charged in to attack.

The leading warrior made a straightforward lunge with his long sword, his eyes widening comically as Marcus smashed the blade aside with his left-hand sword, then thrust the other into his thigh, shifting his weight on to the weapon to force it through the heavy muscles and out of the man’s leg in a shower of blood from the severed artery.

As the wounded man screamed in sudden pain, staggering where he stood with one leg unable to support his weight, Marcus hacked the spatha into the face of the warrior to his right so fast that it was all the man could do to parry the blow upwards, leaving himself open to a brutally powerful half-fist that ruptured his throat and dropped him choking to the ground. Marcus hacked at his first victim’s head with his spatha, gripping the sword buried in his leg and kicking the grievously injured warrior backwards to impede the last of the three from bringing his weapon to bear, tearing it free as the barbarian fell away from him. He ducked reflexively as the last man’s sword hacked through the air where his head had been, but before he could move to either attack or defend an arrow flicked over his shoulder and buried itself deep in the barbarian’s ribs, the shock dumping the man on to his backside with eyes slitted against the pain.

Stepping swiftly back from the fallen warriors, wary of a last desperate knife-thrust from one of the wounded, he eyed the next wave of attackers with cold calculation. Where there had been half a dozen only four remained, and two of them were limping from arrow wounds, but they were still advancing towards him with their shields raised to deflect the continual flicker of Hamian arrows, others following close behind.

‘You might be better off behind this.’

A shield slid into place across his body, a strong arm holding the heavy wooden board rock steady. Marcus didn’t need to look around to know who the newcomer was.

‘No, brother, you’ll need it more than me.’

Dubnus chuckled darkly in his ear.

‘Me? I’ve got another somewhere. Ah, here it is.’

Marcus looked round to see a soldier move into position alongside the 5th’s centurion, putting his shield across Dubnus’s body in turn.

‘Well met, Scarface, although you might be better using that board for your own defence.’

The veteran soldier shook his head solemnly.

‘Can’t do that, sir. We look after our officers in the Fifth Century, as well you know, both past and present. And besides…’

Marcus grinned wearily, the fierce heat of combat seeping out of his body.

‘I know, you’ve got a friend or two on the way.’

More of the 5th’s men were pouring over the earth wall, ducking through the still-firing archers to take their place in the shield wall. The four-man group of barbarians stopped advancing a dozen feet from the century’s quickly forming line of shields as the numbers facing them tripled in less than ten seconds, then started to back away as the full 5th Century mustered in front of the Hamians, rapping their shields with their spears and shouting insults at the unnerved barbarians. Marcus spoke without taking his eyes off the scene to their front.

‘This could still get ugly if that lot decide to come at us in strength.’

He turned back to find Qadir on the wall above him.

‘Qadir! Shoot everything you’ve got left into the warband!’

The 8th’s rate of fire increased, the tired archers giving the last of their trembling arm strength to rain their remaining arrows on to the wavering warband. With a triumphant bray of trumpets the hill fort’s southern rampart was suddenly crested by familiar figures, the shields and helmets unmistakably Roman as the auxiliary cohorts fought their way into the demoralised defence.

‘Qadir! Cease firing on the warband. Self-defence only!’

Even as the bows fell quiet, their little part of the battlefield suddenly silent without the incessant twanging of bowstrings, the depleted warband broke under a savage frontal assault, hundreds of men streaming away from the ill-matched fight across ground carpeted with the bodies of the dead and wounded. For a moment it appeared as if the remnant of the warband would escape, at least as far as the cavalrymen patrolling beyond the fort’s earth walls, but as the Tungrians watched, the hill fort’s rim was suddenly lined with the silhouettes of hundreds of soldiers, waiting grimly for the tribesmen to attempt a breakout, their spears held ready to throw.

‘Sixth Legion.’

Dubnus nodded grim assent to Marcus’s statement.

‘And about bloody time. Seems we’re taking prisoners after all.’

The routed tribesmen, helpless in the face of such overwhelming force, threw down their weapons and stood helpless under the legionaries’ spears.

Legatus Equitius came forward with the remainder of the legion later that morning, keen to understand just why the warband had been camped in so precarious a position. He found the detachment in high spirits, and his senior tribune delighted with the result. Antonius led him across the ground over which the cohorts had trampled earlier that day, up the hill fort’s slope and down into its bowl. As they crested the slope the scale of the slaughter became apparent. Legionaries were toiling to stack the barbarian dead on one side of the fort, while the wounded were squatting and lying in even greater numbers on the other. Equitius stopped to survey the scene.

‘How many of them did you kill?’

‘Four hundred and seventy-odd dead, nearly twice as many wounded.’

‘And our losses?’

The tribune’s smile told him most of the story before he even opened his mouth to reply.

‘Thirty-four dead, sixty-two wounded and a dozen of them likely to be dead before nightfall.’

Equitius stopped walking and turned to face the tribune, his eyebrows raised.

‘You killed and wounded twelve hundred barbarians for the loss of less than fifty men? I would have expected a nought on the end of our side of that tally. How did you manage it?’

Antonius smiled modestly.

I deployed the auxiliaries in front of our own men and assaulted the barbarians in the usual manner, with one small variation. The Tungrian cohort has a double-strength century of archers, and I…’

Understanding dawned on Equitius.

‘Ah… I see. The Tungrian archers. Let’s have a look at the wounded, shall we?’

They crossed the fort’s bowl and Equitius’s bodyguard fanned out with their swords drawn and shields ready, their centurion walking forward with his vine stick under one arm in an obvious show of bravado. The wounded had, for the most part, one feature in common. The legatus favoured his deputy with a knowing smile.

‘Horrible things, iron-headed arrows, when you’re not wearing armour and a decent helmet, but lethal if you’re caught in the open without a nice thick shield. A sound idea, Antonius, very fine work. Clearly you’ve been hiding your talents from me these last few months … eh?’

Antonius thought quickly.

‘I can’t take all the credit, Legatus. It was Prefect Scaurus that first mentioned the existence of his archers to me…’

Equitius smiled easily.

‘Quite right, Tribune, credit where it’s due.’

‘I stationed men all around the fort once the fight was properly started, took almost three hundred prisoners.’

‘You took prisoners?’

The tribune gave his superior a careful glance.

‘I thought you’d want to know what they were doing here, so I took the liberty…’

Equitius nodded his agreement.

‘Where are they?

‘I’ve got a couple of centuries guarding them back at the camp, sir. I thought it best to separate them from their wounded, given that we’re treating them in the usual manner.’

Equitius nodded again.

‘Battlefield rules?’

‘Yes, sir. The senior centurions are making the assessments. Given that we’ve got such a small number of wounded the legion medics are getting plenty of arrow removal practice on the easier cases, but anyone that won’t be able to walk away from here is being taken over the fort’s wall and put to the sword.’

Equitius shrugged, watching another seriously wounded man being carried up the earth wall by a pair of legionaries.

‘They’re all going to die, whether now or later. And now I’d best get over to your camp.’

‘Yes, sir. You’ll be wanting to question their leader?’

‘You got their chieftain alive? Well, well, Tribune. In the words of a legatus I served under on the German border, it’s as good to be lucky as it is to be good. And you, young man, having called down the iron rain on these poor fools and still pulled their leader unharmed from the wreckage, you can truly consider yourself to be a lucky man. Yes, I very much want to meet the murdering bastard, but before I do I’ve a more important appointment to keep.’

Equitius strode into Scaurus’s tent fifteen minutes later to find prefect and first spear waiting for him.

‘Gentlemen… you knew I was coming?’

The prefect smiled tightly, tapping his right ear.

‘It’s not hard to guess when a senior officer is likely to appear through the tent flap when one can hear a succession of centurions shouting at their men to stand to attention, all the time getting steadily closer. It was either going to be you, Legatus, or the governor. And Ulpius Marcellus isn’t one for venturing out into the camp.’

The legatus smiled wryly.

‘Very clever. Nearly as clever as that trick you pulled on those poor barbarians you had young Tribulus Corvus and his Syrians use for target practice this morning. My broad stripe had a decent go at taking credit for the idea, cheeky young sod, but it was pretty evident he wouldn’t even have known you had any archers on the payroll, much less that they’re led by a man who can’t be allowed out into the countryside without him finding some novel way of bringing death to the blue-noses…’

He caught the look in Scaurus’s eye.

‘You look less than happy, Prefect. Am I to presume…?’

‘That I’m aware of your little secret with regard to my officer, Legatus? That I have already sought to minimise his exposure to those people likely to be looking for him? Or, perhaps, that I’m just a little concerned that this latest success, necessary though it was for the survival of my command, will bring the interest of the wrong people down on us all like flies on fresh shit. That would be “yes” to all three. Sir.’

Equitius turned away, hiding a momentary smile.

‘So you’ve already taken young Corvus under your wing, eh, Prefect? And why would that be, when everyone from the governor down tells me that you’re as straight as the road from Dark Pool to the banks of the River Abus? You’re supposed to be imperial through and through, Prefect, so why dirty your hands with our fugitive’s sordid scrabblings to avoid justice, eh?’

Scaurus put both hands on his hips. His tongue played on his bottom lip as he judged the right answer to give to a man who was, for all the tension in the air, still his superior.

‘Why, Legatus? Because I see myself in him, and if you want to see behind that statement you’ll be a long time waiting. That and the persuasive case my first spear made for the man’s capacity for battle. He’s…’

‘… simply worth saving, eh, Prefect? Those were the words that came to me when I asked myself what in Hades I was doing sheltering him from the throne’s hunting dogs while I was in your shoes. But now we have a larger problem than our own ability to combine our obedience to the empire with loyalty to our ideals, do we not?’

Scaurus nodded unhappily.

‘Indeed we do. There’s a man less than two hundred paces from here who hates my guts with a passion I doubt either of you can comprehend, and who has a very good idea that Tribulus Corvus has found refuge with this cohort. I can assure you that for all the imperial favour that unearthing such a fugitive would bring him, it would give him nowhere near as much enjoyment as seeing me unmasked as his protector.’

The cohort awoke to mist and drizzle the next morning, took a hasty breakfast and prepared to stand to in the grey morning light. Marcus dressed in his tent attended by Antenoch and a sleepy Lupus, tucking his tunic into his woollen campaign trousers. The garment was a comfort permitted by the first spear only when the cohort was in the field late in the campaign season, a time of the year known for its wind and sudden rain.

‘I’ll never get used to wearing these blasted itchy things. All those years reading that trousers are the mark of the barbarian, and suddenly I can’t go outdoors in anything other than high summer — or whatever passes for summer here — without them.’

Antenoch muttered his response into the pile of his officer’s equipment.

‘I can see how your delicate legs would enjoy the protection, Centurion. Would you like the leg wrappings too?’

A look passed between them, and Marcus snorted gently, a half-smile creasing his face.

‘Don’t mock the afflicted, Clerk, and pass me those socks and my boots.’

He tugged the heavy woollen socks into place, tucking their open ends under his feet as he laced up his polished hobnailed boots. Streaks of mud decorated their gleaming leather, betraying the lack of any attention the previous evening.

‘We’ll move this morning.’ Antenoch brushed an errant horsehair back into place in Marcus’s helmet crest and placed it on his bedroll. ‘You don’t get this many troops in one place without the boys in bronze wanting to march them aimlessly round the countryside. It’s their way of convincing themselves that they’re doing something meaningful.’

Marcus pulled on his padded leather arming vest, meant to protect the wearer’s flesh from being cut by his mail’s rings if they were struck by sword or spear, carefully pulling it straight to ensure that it wouldn’t wrinkle and chafe under the armour.

‘There’s still a warband out there, or perhaps you’d forgotten that? We’ll be advancing to make contact with the enemy.’

His clerk snorted.

‘I’ll put down ten to your five that our glorious leaders don’t have the first clue where the blue-noses are hiding. “Somewhere in the forests to the north-east” is about the limit of their intelligence, so once again we’ll get to go and find them the hard way under the pretence of scouting to the flanks. Lupus, help me with the centurion’s mail.’

He lifted the heavy mail shirt over Marcus’s head and pulled it down on to the leather arming vest while Lupus pulled the mail’s hem down his thighs to ensure its close fit to his shoulders. Antenoch rubbed a finger at the rings across one shoulder, holding his hand out to the child.

‘Dirty. You were supposed to brush and polish this shirt before bed last night, you idle little bugger. You want me to send the centurion on parade in dirty armour?’

He reached for the soft brush and set about the rings with vigour, the swift strokes shaking the uncomplaining Marcus from side to side as he raised an eyebrow at an unabashed Lupus. Antenoch clipped the back of the child’s head with his open palm.

‘You leave this dirty another night this month and you can kiss your purse money goodbye… what’s that?’

Starting guiltily, the red-faced boy repeated his muttered comment aloud.

‘I said there’s nothing to spend it on anyway.’

Antenoch snorted.

‘Welcome to my army, you dozy little sod. Of course there’s nothing to spend it on, this is a fighting cohort on campaign, not a tour of the wall’s honey-cake stalls. And while we’re at it I can see mud spots on those boots. The centurion can see them too, but he’s too polite to mention it…’

He shot a hand out and grabbed the boy’s ear, twisting it painfully and pulling the child close to his face.

‘You can consider this your administrative punishment. Next time it’ll be loss of pay and privileges for you, my lad. Now off with you and find your grandad, make sure he’s ready for parade and bring him here.’

Lupus ran from the tent clutching his reddened ear. Marcus raised an eyebrow.

‘Pass my belt and baldrics. You’re too hard on the boy.’

Antenoch shrugged, passing over Marcus’s officer’s heavy belt and sword harnesses.

‘And you’re all too soft on him. You’re too nice, Morban’s too busy being his grandfather and the rest of the troops treat him more like a mascot than a kid with a need for discipline. Someone’s got to act like a father for him, and in the absence of anyone else…’

He raised an eyebrow at Marcus, inviting further comment, but none was forthcoming. After an uncomfortable pause the officer held out a hand.

‘Helmet, please. Thank you.’

The centurion pulled his helmet on, tightening the leather chin strap and looking around him.

‘Looking for this?’

Antenoch held out the thick knobbly vine stick, and Marcus took it, rotating it unconsciously until his thumb found its accustomed resting place in a small indentation.

‘You’re right, as it happens. We do spoil the boy in our own ways. I suppose we’re all trying to compensate him for the roll of the dice he’s had to endure in the last few months. I take your point, though, and I’ll try to be a bit more like an officer with him, and a bit less like…’

He fell silent, and Antenoch nodded his understanding, his face softening.

‘His older brother? Don’t change a thing, Centurion, I’ll make sure that the troops give him a bit of a harder time, starting with that old bugger Morban. You just teach him how to throw iron around the way that you do, and leave the tough stuff to the rest of us.’

Marcus nodded, his eyes momentarily far away, then gathered himself and turned, stepping out into the morning’s murk, calling for Qadir. Antenoch turned his attentions to packing away the centurion’s gear, muttering quietly in the tent’s silence.

‘No, don’t change a thing, Centurion. Being his older brother might help keep you the right side of sane, given all that’s happened in the last few months.’