Legionary

Chapter 11

Father stood before him, but not the father he remembered from the earlier times he had been here; he looked different. This time he was standing in the eye of a sandstorm, stock still and wearing only tattered robes, his hair was unkempt and white and he held out one hand while the desert raged around him. Pavo had felt himself being drawn closer and closer still, feeling the sand grains whip against his skin and the wind roar in his ears. The noise grew deafening until he came close enough to make out Father’s features. Then he recoiled; there was something wrong with his eyes, they were shaded, dark. Then Father looked up, directly at him, his dark and hollow sockets staring. Pavo woke, sat bolt upright in his cot and gasped for breath while the legion slept around him in the silent barracks.

He shivered at the still vivid image — the dream had haunted his sleep for years. Father had always been calling him, but each time, he seemed darker, angrier. He frowned, running his fingers across his bristled scalp then feeling for the bronze phalera on the end of the leather thong around his neck.

Taking a deep breath, he glanced around the barracks to ground himself. They had been at the fort for just a fortnight, but the bitterness of life under a slave master in Constantinople seemed an age ago, long replaced by the toil under a different master in the form of Centurion Brutus. Cruel as Brutus was, it was his job. But it was the altogether more sinister threat from Spurius and his club-fisted friend Festus who seemed more direct replacements for Fronto, he mused, rubbing the dark-blue bruises the pair had left on his ribs the previous day.The other recruits would have been ambivalent about their agenda, he was sure, had it not been for Spurius’ muscle, but they too had sided with the angry young Greek when push came to shove. All except Sura, Pavo mused as the Thracian snored, sleeping soundly as usual despite the pummellings he had taken from Festus. For what, Pavo wondered, thinking back to their oath outside the fort on that first day they met, for a half-cocked pact made in jest when he barely knew me?

Sunlight crept under the doorway. Pavo forced deep, slow breaths into his lungs as the orangey tendrils slithered towards his bunk. A modicum of calm was descending on him when a powerful, ripping fart echoed around the barracks, followed by the pained coughing of the poor sod who had taken the brunt of its aroma. No amount of deep breathing would make today any easier; a quick march was on the agenda; twenty miles of treacherous terrain — bog, forest and hills — carrying the full burden of legionary armour, rations and camping gear. All that on a stomach of hardtack biscuits and cheese — the meagre and all too familiar portions rationed to the recruits not out of necessity but apparently ‘all part of the training’.

He again glanced at Sura; the two would have to spur each other on through today’s punishment and — he glowered over at the snoring Spurius — watch each other’s backs. His eyes hung on the thug momentarily, until the crunch of the morning watch on the flagstones outside startled him.

The buccinas howled out the morning wakeup call and at once, the barracks stirred with a chorus of grumbling and cursing. Pavo tensed his jaw as the silence ebbed away and the reality of the day ahead took a grip on him. He slid from his bunk, greeted by a confused moan from Sura.

‘What’re you doing out of your pit?’

‘Couldn’t wait to break my back and fling myself through mud,’ Pavo shot back with a sardonic grin, tightening his bootstraps then slipping into the less filthy of the two coarse standard issue tunics. Casting nervous glances around the barracks, he gathered up the weighty equipment they had been assigned yesterday — certainly not the pristine armour his father had enjoyed. The rusting mail vest alone strained his wiry limbs and dug into his shoulders, and he had yet to add on the burden of the battered and punctured intercisa helmet, the solid mass of an oval shield — the paint-flecked surface scratched and scarred beyond recognition, and his wooden training sword. He winced at the thought of adding the rest of the standard campaign kit to that lot: a snub pickaxe and a rusting sickle, a coil of rope, an earth-shifting basket — all bulk that would chafe at his skin throughout the march. Even the rations were bulky and heavy, with Brutus insisting on a standard twenty-day ration pack to ‘give ‘em a feel for the pain of a real march.’ The leather backpack was stuffed with hardtack biscuits, bread, salted mutton, water and sour wine.

As he kitted up, and let his shoulders broaden to take the load and firmed his expression; no trace of weakness could be betrayed. The trainers would verbally destroy anyone who lagged behind, but there was more to be worried about than a bollocking in front of the other recruits. His eyes darted over to Spurius, who slipped on his rusting scale armour as if it was a silk cloak as he joked with Festus.

‘I can’t believe we’re still carrying the wooden swords,’ Sura muttered. ‘Weighs like a bloody rock; just shows they can’t trust us not to cut ourselves, eh?’

‘Or each other,’ Pavo murmured, turning to sit on Sura’s bunk with a nod of the head to Spurius.

‘Eh? Oh forget about him,’ Sura hissed. ‘Listen, I’ve got a plan. If we make for the front of the column at the start of the march, we’ll have one of the officers eyeing us all the way. The column will stretch out as the march goes on and legs get tired, so it’ll be hard work to stay up there, but it’ll keep numbskull over there from trying any funny business. In any case…’

Pavo’s brow furrowed as Sura’s words trailed off.

‘What’re you and your boyfriend moaning about, Pavo?’ A horribly familiar voice grunted from behind him. He half expected a punch in the back of the head. When it didn’t come, he knew he had to turn around and face Spurius. And take a beating. He felt his fear subside into boiling anger — he saw Fronto, he saw Tarquitius. Before he could check himself, he pivoted to face Spurius.

‘What’re you so bitter about? So some of your cronies from the city have offered you a couple of coins to kick my head in — is that all you’re worth? I’m not bringing my issues into the army with me, so why should you? How’s about you just get lost and bother someone else who cares? Like the pigs in the village!’

The barracks fell silent and still, all eyes on the pair. Then a nervous snigger escaped from one of the watching recruits. Pavo felt their stares burn his skin, but none more than that of the grimacing Spurius, whose anger twisted into a terrible yellow-toothed grin.

‘In a hurry to get your face kicked in?’ He sneered. He snapped his fingers and as before, Festus grappled Sura in a shoulder-lock.

‘Just me and you, one on one,’ Spurius hissed. Then, growling like a rabid dog, he sprang forward, grasping at Pavo’s throat with his hands, throwing them both to the floor.

Pavo’s lungs emptied as they hit the flagstones and a rabble of excitement broke out from the onlookers. Gasping through the raining blows to his face, he flapped his arms somewhat uselessly at Spurius’ sides. A dull crack filled his head just as he tasted blood trickling into his mouth from his nose and Spurius hefted his arms back, bent to hammer down for the next blow. If he blacked out…it didn’t bear thinking about.

With a grunt, Pavo clenched his stomach, finding just enough leverage to ram his knee up and into Spurius’ groin with a dull thud. The barracks chorused a collective gasp of shared pain, and with a whimper, his attacker fell away. Dazed, Pavo scrambled back and up onto his feet. Then, a gust of fresh morning air swept the room as all eyes turned to the barrack door.

‘What the…?’ The silhouette of Brutus filled the doorway, glowering at the goings-on. ‘You heard the call! You’re going to pay for this today — there’s a quaint little swamp upriver that you’d just love.’ His footsteps grew steadily louder, until they stopped inches behind Pavo.

‘Is there a problem here?’ Brutus spoke gently.

Pavo turned slowly to face the centurion.

Brutus trembled, his face red and his eyes bulging. Then his features fell stony. ‘Care to explain why you’re covered in blood and filth when you should be out on that piggin’ square?’ He roared. ‘Anyone else want to explain that?’

‘He fell as he was gathering his equipment, sir,’ an anonymous voice called out. Brutus pulled a sardonic grin at the answer, and then looked Pavo up and down.

‘It’s true, sir, I fell.’

Brutus shook his head slowly, and then looked up again.

‘And you kicked seven shades out of yourself and these three morons while you were at it? Can’t even bloody lie properly!’ He nodded in disgust at the startled trio of Sura, Festus and Spurius. ‘Enough of this rubbish. Get yourselves out in that square immediately.’ He eyed Pavo again, shook his head then turned and strode from the barracks.

As he left, Spurius shouldered past Pavo with a grunt. Sura exchanged a glare with Festus and then the bull-shouldered recruit wandered off.

‘You okay?’ Sura asked.

‘I have to be, haven’t I — don’t see me getting the day in bed, do you?’ Pavo replied as he clipped his pickaxe and sickle to his belt. Then he touched his fingers to the numbness of his battered face.

‘Well get your gear together.’ Sura handed him his pack, before sliding on his own. ‘It’s not over yet.’

Pavo splashed down from a gnarled tree stump into a putrid soup of bog water. At once, he was up to his neck in the sulphurous swell and his armour and kit morphed into stone, pulling him greedily down. He spluttered mud from his lips, blinking the filth from his eyes as he saw Centurion Brutus and his troops shoot off into the distance — and then the following recruits splashed down to miss the hazard and were gone, too.

‘There goes the plan,’ he croaked, flapping at the stump. The pace of the march had been just about bearable, but the terrain was the true test. He and Sura had managed to stay near the front for the first few miles until Sura had dropped back, tiring. Now the plan was well and truly scuppered.

With a groan, he pushed forward, launched his shield from the bog onto the track, then stretched his fingers to claw at the stump, grappling the gnarled roots to pull himself out and onto his knees with a grotesque squelching. Panting, he started slopping the mud from his vest, savouring the moment of respite from the pace of the march until a set of footsteps thundered up behind him. His skin crawled, Spurius, Festus! Then the footsteps ended with a graceless splash.

‘Bollocks!’ a mud-coated figure gurgled from the bog. Sura.

His friend had inexplicably landed face-first in the bog, and was now thrashing gracelessly. Pavo looped an arm around the stump and craned back into the thick mess, wrapping a forearm under his friend’s shoulder and round his neck. This time, his muscles really felt the strain as purchase was harder to come by. He wrenched backwards, ignoring Sura’s exaggerated choking fit. Grunting, heels scraping for leverage on the bank of the bog, they finally came loose just as Pavo’s vision began to spot over.

‘Urgh!’ Sura spluttered, caked in the dark sludge, and bleeding from his knees.

‘I know it’s not too pleasant,’ Pavo shot a nervous glance down the track — empty, for now, ‘but humour me — let’s start running again?’

Sura, staggered to his feet, shooting daggers.

‘Spurius?’ Pavo hissed in exasperation.

‘Oh, aye, right. Sorry. Don’t think he’s passed us yet, has he?’

‘Don’t know — I was too busy floating face down in that shit when the others passed. Come on, we can talk while we run.’

They set off at a jog again. ‘A good, hard kicking, Pavo, that’s what the whoreson needs. Then he’ll think twice about bothering you, or me for that matter, in future. If we could just get him or Festus on their own…’ Sura gasped as they picked up the pace.

Pavo grunted in semi-agreement, his eyes fixed on the muddied armour of the recruits just ahead, but not so far ahead that they couldn’t be caught. Safety in numbers, he thought. He glanced back over his shoulder. Nothing. A clear run to the end and safety by the looks of it. A giddy confidence laced his blood — then his heart leapt as he faced forward again, star jumping over an oak stump he had nearly run into. A fit of giggles worked loose from his chest and he turned to tell Sura, when a dark shape swung from out of nowhere and smashed into his nose, filling his head with white light and a deafening crack.

Blackness swamped his mind. Through the bleariness, he saw a tree branch quivering gradually to a standstill above him, outlined by the blue-grey sky. Flat on his back, he craned his neck up; several paces away he made out the figure of Festus — raining blows on the grounded Sura. Dread grappled his heart. He made to scramble to his knees when another figure darted out in front of him to boot him in the chest. Spurius.

Pavo grunted, thudding back onto the dirt.

‘Time to take a serious beating, maggot!’ Spurius snarled, whipping his wooden sword out and smashing it against the still juddering branch, spraying shards of bark.

Pavo scuttled backwards on the heels of his hands. Spurius stalked forward — cool, unspent and suspiciously free of mud; they had no doubt taken a shortcut. Not for wasting any time, Spurius lunged, swiping his sword down at Pavo’s midriff. Rolling clear of the brunt of the strike, Pavo yelped as Spurius’ sword burned his flank. The pain sparked realisation in him — he had to act. This time Spurius roared as he thumped forward like a rhino. At last, Pavo found composure; he sprang to his feet, jinking to safety just as Spurius’ sword splattered into his mud imprint.

‘You’re going to be drinking your food when I’m finished with you!’ He spat.

Then, from behind him, Festus piped up. ‘And that’s just for starters — there’s money on your head.’

Pavo forced himself to focus, despite the wailing that accompanied the peripheral image of Sura being beaten to a pulp.

‘My head? You’re here to assassinate me?’ Pavo felt his gut ripple. The forest had never seemed so dark or lonely.

Spurius nodded slowly, a finality written all over his broad features. ‘Remember what happened to Pulcher of The Greens?’

Pavo’s throat tightened as he remembered the day at the races. Pulcher, the man who had hired him to steal the bronze standard, had been conspicuous by his absence. Then the very standard itself had been raised from the Blues crowd, complete with the grey, scabbed, staring head of Pulcher himself.

‘You would work for the scum who do that to people? Don’t have a mind of your own?’ Pavo hissed, grateful of the anger that overwhelmed his fear once again. Drawing his own wooden sword, he steadied himself. ‘What if I was to promise you a couple of coins to torture and kill someone — would I suddenly be your master? Is that all you’re worth? Is that what your mother hoped for when she bore you — a brainless murderer?’

Spurius’ face wrinkled in scarlet fury and his brow knitted into a tight v-shape. ‘Nobody’s my bloody master!’ he barked. ‘I just do what I’ve got to do…’ then his pupils dilated. ‘And don’t you ever talk about my mother!’

Pavo’s brow furrowed — the man was driven, but coins were not his motivation. No, something was tearing at him from inside.

He stalked to the right, and then back to the left, as Spurius jinked and jostled — moving like a cat despite his bull-like build. Having only his recent legionary training to rely on here, Pavo focused on the eyes, then the sword hand, then the feet of his opponent. There had to be a technique to this, he prayed. Knowing his opponent only had a short window before the rest of the recruits and officers would catch up, Pavo played the defensive game, skipping back for every step Spurius took towards him, watching his opponent’s face glow redder at every turn.

Spurius broke the pattern, ducking to Pavo’s left. Pavo skipped backwards, raising his sword and tipping the hilt towards Spurius’ outstretched head — the strike was on! But his attacker read the move perfectly — it was just a feint before he whipped over to Pavo’s right, swinging the edge of his sword straight into Pavo’s ribs. A disembodied scream of agony rent the air over the thick cracking of a bone. He glanced at his unused shield, lying caked in mud as his legs wobbled, and gave way to the wave of nausea and blackness washing over him. He heard himself splash into the grime, but didn’t feel a thing. In the numbness of semi-consciousness, blows rained down on his already pulped face.

Dim images of Spurius’ frothing face came and went, twinned with hard as stone hammer-blows into his body. Then the blunt darkness was ripped away at the noise of cold hard iron being slid from a scabbard. Pavo’s eyes opened as slits; Festus was handing Spurius an iron sword. Spurius grappled the hilt with both hands, eyeing its length.

‘Don’t bugger about — finish him!’ Festus growled. ‘I’ll get the bloody lash if they find out I brought that thing out.’

‘Aye, and what d’you think I’ll get for this?’ Spurius grumbled back, juggling the sword in his grip.

Pavo noticed something ripple across the thug’s face as he spun the blade over in his hands. Was it, surely not…reluctance?

‘In the name of…’ Festus snarled, snatched at the blade and whipped it over his head, then bared his tombstone teeth. ‘Lights out time,’ he grunted matter-of-factly.

Pavo’s body lay anchored to the ground like lead, every bone screaming out to move but crippled in agony. He winced in a desperate attempt to roll over, but sank back into the path of the onrushing sword swing. Grimacing, he waited on the blackness, the pain that was to come.

But nothing. Then the canter of hooves.

‘Brutus!’ Festus hissed.

Pavo cracked open an eye to see Festus empty handed. A dull clank a few paces into the foliage signalled the location of the sword. He stumbled to his feet, his face caked in mud and blood and feeling like fire.

‘This seems to be your specialty, looking like a whore’s breakfast!’ Brutus boomed, scowling at Pavo’s pathetic form. ‘I’ve already bloody finished the march and had time to come back here — and I’m twice your age. Who’s going to tell me what this carry-on’s all about?’ Immediately, Festus stood to attention and addressed the centurion.

‘The idiot tripped, fell, and bloodied his nose again, sir.’

Brutus’ gaze steeled. ‘Did he kick the shit out of himself while he was at it…again?’

Pavo glanced over the scene; Sura, with a face like a cauliflower, Festus, still snarling, and Spurius — Spurius looked haunted. Whatever was going on in the man’s head it wasn’t pretty. He looked Brutus in the eye.

‘I fell, sir. My colleagues were helping me up.’

Brutus snorted, looked them all over, as his mount bucked and whinnied.

‘I’ll be expecting all of you back at the fort in one piece,’ he shot them all an iron glare, and then glanced over Pavo once more, shaking his head. ‘Latrines for a week, all of you,’ he snapped, before spurring his horse back into a gallop along the track.

Spurius’ eyes burned into Pavo.

‘Your time will come.’

Pavo pulled short, desperate breaths as the terror faded. He fought to contain the sobs that pulled at his throat. Sura trudged over to him.

‘Look at the state of you, can’t tell what’s skin and what’s cut. They were going to kill you!’

Pavo cut him off, rage simmering in his eyes, chest heaving. ‘I don’t get it, Sura, I really don’t. There’s something seriously wrong in that animal’s head.’ His body shaking, he eyed Spurius and Festus as they lumbered on ahead.

‘But I know one thing for sure…It’s him or me!’