Enemy of Rome

XVIII

‘Gaius Valerius Verrens, appointed commander of Legio VII Galbiana on the orders of Marcus Antonius Primus.’ Valerius struggled to keep the raw edge from his voice. ‘And with the full authority of Titus Flavius Vespasian.’

He saw the conflicting emotions flicker across the face of the fresh-faced military tribune who was the Seventh’s second in command. First disappointment, because the young man had his pride and his bloodline. That bloodline dictated he was born to command and his pride told him he should want it. But it was swiftly replaced by relief, because a battle was imminent and he was as inexperienced in battle as the young Spaniards who made up the legion’s ranks. The Seventh had been formed less than a year before by the prospective Emperor Servius Sulpicius Galba. Its ranks were filled by Roman citizens, mainly farmers, from his province of Hispania Tarraconensis, stiffened with a backbone of centurions from other legions. The legion had escorted Galba to Italia and taken part in his blood-spattered entry to Rome. They’d stayed only long enough to see him formally proclaimed Emperor before being dispatched to the Danuvius frontier to learn their trade under Marcus Antonius Primus. Since then, they’d trained and they’d patrolled, but they’d never had to fight. Only a handful of the men now under Valerius’s command had ever stood in a shield line or hurled a pilum in anger. What he needed to know was their mettle and their temper. He waited patiently as the tribune twitched under the unforgiving dark eyes and took in the white scar that disfigured his new commander’s face from eyelid to lip. Valerius flicked back his cloak to reveal the carved wooden fist on his right arm and the young man’s eyes widened.

‘C–Claudius Julius Ferox, at your service, sir.’

Valerius nodded. ‘I don’t have time for pleasantries, tribune,’ he said. ‘We leave the instant the legion is formed up, so you may introduce me to your officers on the march. For the moment I need to know our supply situation and ration strength.’

‘We resupplied at Bedriacum with rations for three days.’

‘Water?’

‘Skins filled during the halt.’

‘Numbers?’

Ferox frowned. ‘We have the usual sicknesses and men on furlough. The only major loss has been a few dozen men from the fifth cohort we had to leave with the heavy weapons.’

A nervous smiled flickered across his face as he sought some acknowledgement. Valerius turned to look over the ranks forming up behind them. ‘I didn’t ask you for an estimate, tribune.’ He kept his voice audible only to the young man, but it took on a force that pinned the smile in place. ‘I asked you for numbers. If you don’t have them find out from someone who does.’

The tribune rode off, shouting for his camp prefect. As he waited, Valerius found himself the focus of a grinning face peering out from beneath the savage mask of the bear’s pelt that hung over its owner’s wide shoulders. Big, worker’s hands clutched the pole of the legion’s eagle standard. It came to him that the last time he’d seen that face he was being marched to his execution on a dusty field in Moesia, found guilty of cowardice and deserting his comrades. Somehow he managed to keep his face straight.

‘The Seventh must have been short of proper soldiers if they made you aquilifer, Atilius Verus. You probably need an assistant just to carry that shiny new bauble.’

‘The legate must have felt sorry for me, I reckon, sir.’ The grin broadened. ‘Glad you’ve overcome your, er, difficulties, if you don’t mind me venturing.’

Valerius laughed. ‘Who’s your primus pilus?’

‘Our first file would be Gaius Brocchus, sir. Twenty-year man and a proper … soldier.’

‘Proper bastard, you mean?’

‘Proper clever, ugly bastard.’

‘Up to any little tricks, is he? Naughty games with the rations or the leave tickets?’

Verus’s face went blank. ‘I wouldn’t know about anything like that, sir.’

‘No.’ Valerius raised an eyebrow. ‘Well, I think I’ll have a little chat with him anyway.’ His face split into a smile. ‘Glad you’re with us, aquila.’

‘You too, sir. They’re young, but keen, sir,’ the standard-bearer blurted. ‘A bit raw, but you can depend on them in a fight, especially now they’re well led. The Seventh won’t let you down, sir.’

Valerius nodded, but for a moment the breath caught in his chest. He remembered another young legion, raw, but keen, who’d torn the heart out of a force of German veterans, taken their eagle, and then been ground to bloody ruin. He hoped it wasn’t an omen.

Serpentius had kept well back from the conversation. Valerius called him forward and together they walked their mounts towards the head of the column where the First cohort had pride of place. ‘Did you want me for something specific?’ the Spaniard asked. ‘Or am I just along for local colour?’

Valerius kept his face straight. ‘Just do what you do best.’

The cohort was the tactical fighting unit of a legion, and each normal cohort consisted of six centuries containing eighty men each. The First were the elite of the legion, shock troops who would be called upon to break the enemy line. Each of their five centuries was double the size of a regular unit, giving the cohort a total of eight hundred men. Officers apart, the rank and file of the Seventh Galbiana contained no veterans, so the First cohort was where Marcus Antonius Primus had placed his biggest and toughest troops. Brocchus, the cohort’s commander, was the exception. He was short enough to be dwarfed by the soldiers around him, but appeared as broad in the shoulders as he was tall. The scars of old battles criss-crossed his sour features like lines on a gaming board and someone had chopped off the end of his nose. But it was his mouth that made him truly fearsome. As Valerius approached, the centurion’s lips parted in a gruesome smile of welcome. The centre teeth in his upper and lower jaws had been knocked out, and the remainder filed to sharp points to give him the ferocious gaping maw of a monster from Hades. Valerius had seen Iceni warriors snapping at Roman throats with their teeth and he had a feeling Gaius Brocchus would know the taste of another man’s flesh.

‘And you thought I was handsome,’ Serpentius muttered under his breath.

Brocchus looked from Valerius to the Spaniard and back again, the smile never leaving his face. Word had evidently filtered down the column faster than the mounted men, and belatedly the centurion slammed his fist into his armoured chest in salute. ‘Sir.’

Valerius acknowledged the perfectly timed not-quite-insolence and studied the ranks of bright-helmeted legionaries standing behind their painted shields. ‘Your men look good, First, but how good are they?’

The compliment brought a murmur of pride from the massed ranks. Brocchus whipped round with his vine stick and rammed it into the chest of the nearest man. ‘Quiet, you noisy bastards. The officer was talking to me.’ His deep-set black eyes searched the front files for any sign of dissent before he turned back to Valerius. ‘They’re Spaniards, so their brains are between their legs,’ he leered. ‘But the only things they like better than fighting are wine and women and we don’t mind that in a soldier, do we, sir?’

Serpentius went very still and Valerius knew he was trying to work out whether the centurion had been complimenting or insulting his race. Before he could decide Valerius slipped from the saddle and threw him his reins. He walked along the ranks, inspecting the men and their equipment. Brocchus had no option but to escort him, barking minor complaints to the men. Clearly he regarded this as his domain and Valerius — legionary commander or not — as a temporary inconvenience.

The whispered words that accompanied the inspection confirmed that view. ‘No need to bring your pet killer with you, sir.’ The centurion darted a contemptuous glance at Serpentius. ‘Old Brocchus is too long in the tooth to be frightened by a broken-down sword juggler.’ He looked down at Valerius’s wooden hand and grinned. ‘I’ve heard all about you and from what I hear that’s not all you’re missing. But it doesn’t matter to me whether you ran from the rebels or not. We should be friends, you and I. All you have to do is mind your business and leave the dirty work to me and we’ll get along just fine.’

The one-handed Roman decided to ignore the implied insult. Every primus pilus protected his authority like Cerberus guarding the gates to the abyss. It wasn’t unknown for them to make this clear to a new legate, but he’d never heard of it done quite so blatantly. He guessed word of his dispute with Marcus Antonius Primus had spread and Brocchus believed it gave him some leeway to mark his territory. He halted in front of a dark-featured young legionary. ‘Name and length of service, soldier?’

‘Marcus Ulpius, second rank, first century,’ the man said in heavily accented Latin. ‘Ten months, three weeks and four days, sir.’

Valerius looked the legionary up and down. He noted the lorica segmentata plate armour was entirely free of rust, which was unusual, because it took an enormous amount of effort to keep it that way. Each set consisted of thirty-four separate pieces of body-hugging, polished iron bands; breastplates, back plates, rib protectors, shoulder-guard plates, collar plates, hinges and buckles, and every one prone to tarnish at the first hint of damp. Brocchus obviously kept his men busy.

‘Sword.’ Ulpius’s expression didn’t change as he reached across his body to draw the twenty-two-inch blade of the gladius free from its scabbard. Again, the iron was spotless and the triangular point honed needle sharp. He nodded, and the legionary replaced the weapon. Valerius could almost feel the glow of Brocchus’s pride. But now he turned to the reason for his choice of this particular legionary. The shade of Ulpius’s tunic of tight-woven wool was still close to the deep red it had been when he’d purchased it from the stores in place of a previous garment.

‘Your tunic has been replaced recently. Tell me,’ he said casually, ‘how much does a new one cost these days?’

Ulpius shot him a look of dismay. ‘Sir?’

‘You must know how much it cost, soldier,’ Valerius said reasonably. ‘When I was in Britannia, it was as much as four denarii, a lot for an ordinary ranker. I’m curious to know if it has increased.’ He had gambled that Brocchus would have added a premium to the cost of a new tunic — which would go directly into his pocket — in return for ignoring the extra punishments he could inflict on the unlucky soldier. Ulpius’s reaction confirmed his suspicion.

The young man’s mouth opened and closed and he looked wide-eyed past Valerius’s shoulder to where Brocchus twitched and spluttered. ‘I …’

‘Or perhaps we could talk about leave entitlement?’

‘If the legate doesn’t mind,’ Brocchus said hastily, ‘this man is a little confused. A fine soldier, but … kicked by a mule … proper bang on the head.’

Valerius nodded to the legionary. ‘A fine turnout, Ulpius. You’re a credit to your unit. As for you …’ he turned his attention to the centurion, bringing his face close and lowering his voice, ‘I know all your little tricks and dodges, Brocchus, and they stop now. I will not have my legionaries fleeced of their pay and I don’t want them going into battle worried about losing a knife or a cooking pot.’

‘You can’t touch me, tribune.’ Brocchus shrugged, undismayed by the threat and certain of his leverage with the army commander. ‘I have friends with influence.’

‘You think you’re above military law just because you have twenty years and a vine stick?’ Valerius laughed. ‘From the moment Marcus Antonius Primus seals the warrant that gives me command of the Seventh Galbiana, I am the law in this legion. You will obey my orders or be back digging ditches with your pension in the legion’s hardship fund. Tonight or tomorrow we’ll be going into battle. This is a fighting legion now, not a knocking shop where legionaries get screwed for the pleasure of Gaius Brocchus. Do you understand, primus pilus?’

Brocchus snorted so hard that snot sprayed from the ragged remains of his nose, but he smashed his fist into his chest. ‘Sir.’

Valerius laughed. ‘You may think my back needs to be making closer acquaintance with the point of a javelin, centurion. Just remember that when you’re lining me up you’ll need someone watching your own back. Because my pet sword juggler will be watching mine and he’s much, much quicker than you. Now get this legion on the road and I want to hear them singing.’

Brocchus shot him a look of pure murder as he re-joined Serpentius by the side of the road to watch the red-clad formations pass. ‘What was that all about?’ the Spaniard demanded.

Valerius remounted and looked out over the never-ending tide of legionaries as the familiar strains of the March of Marius was struck up by the First cohort. ‘I just wanted to make sure they knew there was more than one proper bastard in charge of this legion now, one worth fighting for.’

Serpentius noted the grinning faces as word spread along the column of Brocchus’s humiliation, and looked up at the darkening sky. ‘They know that, but it’s going to be nightfall soon. If some fool decides to fight in the dark, pretty boy up there is going to be less interested in fighting than in making sure the new legate of the Seventh doesn’t survive his first battle.’

Valerius clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Well, you’ll just have to make sure he fails.’

He had made a new enemy, but his whole being was filled with pure, heart-pumping joy. Gaius Valerius Verrens had his legion, and he had his eagle, and he was taking them to war.