The Eagle's Vengeance

1

Oceanus Germanicus, April, AD 184

‘Mercurius? Mercurius is the winged messenger, right?’ The First Tungrian Cohort’s senior centurion shook his head in weary disbelief, rubbing a hand through his thick black hair. ‘We’ve marched all the way from Dacia to the edge of the German Sea, over a thousand miles in every weather from burning sunshine to freezing rain, and now the only thing between my boots and home soil is a mile or two of foggy water …’ He sighed, shaking his head as he stared out into the thick fog. ‘So you’d think a ship called the fucking Mercurius with over a hundred big strong lads at the oars would be moving a little bit quicker than the slow march. This is a bloody warship after all, so surely all the man in charge has to do is say the word to have us skipping across the waves.’

Tribune Scaurus turned to look at his colleague Julius with an indulgent smile, while the three centurions standing behind him exchanged wry glances.

‘Still feeling unwell are you, First Spear?’

Julius shook his head dourly.

‘I’ve puked up everything in my guts, puked once more for good fortune, and then last of all I chewed the round pink thing and swallowed. I’ve nothing left to give, Tribune, and so my body has settled in a state of discontented resentment rather than open rebellion. Now I’m just bored with this snail’s pace that seems to be the best this tub can do.’

‘Aphrodite’s tits and hairy muff, don’t let the captain hear you calling his pride and joy a tub! I caught him stroking the ship’s side yesterday, and when he saw I was watching he just gave me one of those looks that said “I know, but what’s a man to do?”’

Scaurus turned and nodded at the second largest of the four centurions standing about him, a heavily muscled and bearded man in his late twenties.

‘Quite so, Centurion Dubnus. The man’s as proud of his command as a legion eagle bearer, and just as likely to reach for the polish from the look of it. Did you not see the way he frowned when the goat they sacrificed before we sailed sprayed blood all over the deck?’

The tribune turned back to face Julius, the first spear just as heavily set and with the same thick beard as Dubnus, sharing his brooding demeanour and predisposition to dispensing casual violence to malcontents and laggards, although where the younger man’s thick mane and beard were jet black, the senior centurion’s hair was visibly starting to turn grey.

‘And as for your urgency to get your feet on dry land, First Spear, I’d imagine that the Mercurius’s captain is probably equally keen not to run his command ashore in the fog. Apparently we’ll know we’re getting closer when we can hear the Arab Town trumpets, if his navigation’s up to the job. And remember if you will, that for our colleague here a return to Britannia raises fresh questions as to just who might be waiting for us when we arrive.’

He tipped his head at the least heavily muscled of the centurions, a lean, hawk-faced young man who had sought refuge with the Tungrian cohort two years previously and who was now listening to their conversation with a look of imperturbability, then turned back to his senior centurion.

‘News of our return to the province will have gone before us, Julius; you can be assured that the return of two full cohorts of auxiliaries will be of great interest to the governor’s staff. You know as well as I do that there are never enough soldiers to go around. For all we know there might well be senior officers waiting for us when we dock, backed up by a century or two of legionaries fresh from battering the Brigantes back into an appropriate state of subservience. We have to face the possibility that the imperial arrest warrant in the name of Marcus Valerius Aquila, formerly of the praetorian guard, might by now also mention that the fugitive senator’s son is going under the alias of Centurion Marcus Tribulus Corvus of the First Tungrian Cohort. After all, there’s been more than enough time for the authorities to make the connection between those two names, especially when you stop to consider the fact that it’s been over a year since we allowed that blasted corn officer Excingus to escape with the knowledge of our colleague’s true identity.’

The light of realisation dawned on Julius’s face.

‘And that’s why we’re travelling on this warship, rather than wallowing around on the sea with the rest of the men in those bloody awful troop ships? And why we’ve shipped four tent parties of the biggest, nastiest men in the cohort along with their distinctively unpleasant centurion.’

The last of the officers grinned jovially down at him, his voice a bass growl.

‘Well spotted, little brother.’

Scaurus nodded, his face an impassive mask despite the urge to laugh at the effortless way in which Titus, commander of the Tungrians’ pioneer century, got away with treating his first spear like an uppity younger sibling.

‘Indeed it is, First Spear. If we face a welcoming committee, then it may be small enough to be faced down by my rank and your men’s muscle long enough to see Centurion Corvus here safely away into the hills. And if, in the worst case, we’re greeted by too many men to bluff or bully into submission, then our young colleague here can at least surrender with his dignity intact, and without his wife watching or his soldiers indulging in any noble but doomed heroics.’

He turned sharply to his bodyguard who was lurking a few feet away with a look of inscrutability, although long experience told him that the German would have heard every word.

‘That goes for you too, Arminius.’

The tribune’s German bodyguard grunted tersely, staring morosely out into the fog.

‘You will forgive me if I do not promise to follow your command absolutely in this matter, Rutilius Scaurus? You know that I owe the centurion-’

‘A life? How could I forget? Every time I turn around to look for you you’re either teaching the boy Lupus how to throw sharp iron about or away watching the centurion’s back as he wades into yet another unequal fight. I sometimes wonder if you’re still actually my slave …’

A trumpet note sounded far out in the fog that wreathed the silent sea’s black surface, muffled to near inaudibility by the clinging vapour, followed by another, higher in pitch, and the warship’s captain stepped forward with a terse nod.

‘That’s the Arab Town horn. Seems we’re making landfall just as planned, Tribune. Your feet will soon be back on solid ground, eh gentlemen?’

Titus put a spade-like hand on Marcus’s shoulder.

‘Never fear, little brother, whether there’s one man or a thousand of them waiting for you, you’ll not be taken while my men and I have wind in our lungs.’

His friend shook his head, and shrugged without any change of expression.

‘No, Bear, not this time. If there are men waiting for me then I’ll surrender to them meekly enough, rather than adding more innocent blood to my bill. And besides, the dreams still tell me that my destiny awaits me in Rome, whether I like it or not.’

Dubnus nodded, his voice taking on a helpful tone.

‘It’s true. He was rolling around in his scratcher for half the night and muttering on about something or other to do with revenge. I put it down to the amount of the captain’s Iberian that he’d consumed earlier in the evening, while I was cursing him for a noisy bastard and trying to get to sleep myself …’

Marcus nodded with a sad smile.

‘It’s a rare night when my father doesn’t rise from the underworld in order to remind me that I am yet to pay Praetorian Prefect Perennis out for the deaths of my family, while our departed colleague Carius Sigilis fingerpaints the same accusatory words in his own blood across whatever flat surface he finds in the dream.’

Julius and Dubnus rolled their eyes at each other.

‘Those words being “The Emperor’s Knives”, right?’

Marcus nodded at Dubnus’s question. Sigilis, a legionary tribune who had served alongside the Tungrians as they had fought at the sharp end of the struggle to beat off a Sarmatae incursion into Dacia, had named the men who he believed had murdered Senator Aquila and slaughtered his family in the days before he himself had died bloodily at the hands of tribal infiltrators. He had told the young centurion that he had heard the story from the mouth of an informer hired by his own father, a distinguished member of the senatorial order whose disquiet at the increasing frequency of financially motivated judicial assassinations under the new emperor, Commodus, had led him to commission a discreet investigation into the matter.

‘Yes Julius, it’s still the same message after all the months that we spent making our way back down the Danubius and the Rhenus. The shades of the departed still harass me night after night, hungry for blood to repay their own, and for revenge which can only be taken in Rome, it seems. I’ll admit that I grow weary of their persistence on the subject, when it seems unlikely I will ever see the city of my birth again in this lifetime.’

The Arab Town port’s foghorn blew again, the mournful notes distant in the clinging mist, and Marcus turned to stare out at the seemingly impenetrable grey veil.

‘So if my time for capture and repatriation has come, I will accept that fate without a fight. It seems to me that I’ve been running long enough.’

‘Only in Britannia, eh Tribune?’

‘Quite so, Prefect Castus. Quite so …’

The younger of the two men standing on the Arab Town dockside hunched deeper into his cloak, pulling the garment’s thick woollen hood over his head with a despairing look up into the fog that wreathed the port’s buildings. His companion, a shorter and stockier man who seemed comfortable enough in the wind’s chill, shot him an amused look and then glanced around at the three centuries of hard-bitten legionaries waiting in a long double line behind them. Apparently satisfied with what he saw, he resumed his vigil across the harbour’s almost invisible waters, waiting until the foghorns had been blown again before speaking again.

‘Yes, Fulvius Sorex, only in Britannia could the fog be quite this impenetrable. Thirty years of service to Rome has taught me that every province has its endearing little characteristics, those features a man never forgets once he’s experienced them. In Syria it was the flies that would crawl onto the meat in your mouth while you were chewing, given half a chance. In Judea it was the Jews, and their bloody-minded resentment of our boots on their land almost a century after Vespasian finally crushed their resistance into the dust. In Pannonia it was the cold in winter, harsh enough to freeze a river solid all the way down to its bed, and in Dacia …’

He fell silent, and after a moment the younger man glanced round to find his companion staring out into the fog with an unfathomable expression.

‘And in Dacia?’

Castus shook his head, a slow smile spreading across his face.

‘Ah, the rest of the morning wouldn’t be long enough to do Dacia justice. But, and this is my point, this misty, swamp-ridden, rain-soaked nest of evil-tempered, blue-painted madmen gives Dacia some bloody stiff competition. Let’s just say that …’ His expression hardened. ‘There! There they are!’

He thrust out an arm to point at a dark spot in the murk, and his companion narrowed his eyes to gaze in the indicated direction, nodding slowly.

‘You know I do believe you’re right, Prefect Castus. I can hear the oars.’

As they watched, huddling into their cloaks for warmth, the indistinct shape gradually coalesced out of the fog and hardened into the predatory lines of a warship being propelled slowly across the harbour’s dark-green water by slow, careful strokes of its banked oars.

‘That will be what we’ve been waiting for, I presume?’

Sorex nodded in reply to the older man’s question.

‘I expect so. That, and the First Tungrian Cohort, or so the despatch said, with the Second Cohort to follow in a few days’ time. Bloody auxiliaries …’

The prefect’s smile became wry, and he turned to raise an eyebrow at his superior, a man a good twenty years younger than him and no more than a year into his military career.

‘I’d be careful not to take that tone with their commanding officer if I were you, Tribune. As I recall the man, he’s not the type to receive a slur of any nature without turning it around and ramming it straight back down your throat. He always was a headstrong type even in the days when he was little more than a boy in a man’s tunic, and he’s gained more than enough experience of battle since then to have worn his patience with less experienced men as thin as my third best pair of boots.’

Sorex pouted, not deigning to make any response as the crew shipped their oars neatly and allowed the vessel to coast gently up to the dock under the helmsman’s skilled control. Fully resolved out of the fog’s murk, the ship was revealed as a swift and deadly engine of maritime destruction, with bolt throwers mounted fore and aft and a crew of thirty marines standing to attention on the main deck. Men leapt smartly down onto the dock’s wooden planks and swiftly moored their vessel against the quay before reaching to grasp the gangplank being thrust out from the ship’s side. The captain was the first man down the narrow bridge, a hard-faced bearded man who threw Sorex a perfunctory salute and nodded to Castus as he waved a hand back at the docked warship.

‘Yes, Tribune Sorex, your cargo’s safe. There’s an imperial official who’s not taken his eyes off the chests all the way across from Germania, Procurator Avus, as dry and humourless a functionary as it’s ever been my misfortune to welcome aboard the Mercurius. The bloody fool even insisted on sleeping on the deck beside them, despite the fact that I had half a dozen of my marines standing guard on them at all times.’ He turned back to the ship and barked an order at his second in command. ‘Get those chests brought on deck and ready to unload, and make sure the marines stay with ’em to keep the soldiers at arm’s length until they’re off the ship and properly signed over to the army! Those thieving fuckers could be up one of Vesta’s virgins without the bitch knowing that she was no longer in possession of her cherry until the bulge started to show.’

A party of men was making their way down the plank behind him, led by a tall, angular man clad in the sculpted bronze armour of a senior officer, and Prefect Castus stepped forward to meet him as his feet touched the quayside, his hand thrust out in greeting.

‘Rutilius Scaurus! Few sights could give me more pleasure than to see you returning to this revolting excuse for a province!’

The newcomer stared down at him for a moment before a smile of recognition creased his face. Taking the older man’s hand he nodded slowly.

‘Artorius Castus! I’ve not seen you for the best part of ten years, when you were first spear of Twelfth Thunderbolt and I was a fresh-faced junior tribune, good for nothing more than running messages and annoying the senior centurions with my enthusiasm and ignorance. I thought you would long since have retired to enjoy the fruits of your service.’

Castus grinned back at him fondly.

‘Retirement’s not for me, young man. They made me Provost of the fleet at Misenum as a reward for long service, but you know as well as I do that all the Rome fleet’s sailors really do is stage mock sea battles in the Flavian arena and raise the awnings over the audience when the sun gets too hot to bear. That’s no life for a soldier, now is it?’ Scaurus shot him a knowing glance. ‘So, I used what little influence I had to get appointed as Sixth Victorius’s camp prefect, and here I am up to my arse in unfriendly natives once again. But I’m forgetting my manners …’

He waved a hand at his companion who was waiting with a look of barely restrained impatience.

‘This is my current commanding officer, Tribune Gnaeus Fulvius Sorex. Fulvius Sorex, allow me to introduce Tribune Gaius Rutilius Scaurus, the officer commanding the First and Second Tungrian cohorts.’

Scaurus turned to the legion tribune and bowed formally, although his expression was wary as he looked the other man up and down.

‘Tribune Sorex, I must confess myself slightly confused. When we left the province the Sixth Legion was under the command of Legatus Equitius, and the tribal rebellion was well on the way to being contained. Perhaps you could-’

Castus raised a hand to forestall any further discussion.

‘Indeed, we could elucidate on what has happened since then, but not here. Perhaps we might repair to the transit barracks for a more private discussion?’

He peered past Scaurus at the five men behind him, and the tribune turned and raised a hand to invite them forward.

‘My apologies, I was distracted by being greeted off the ship by a colleague of such distinction. Allow me to introduce the First Tungrian Cohort’s first spear, Julius, and my aide, Centurion Corvus. Julius is my intended temporary replacement in the event of any mishap, and Corvus would in turn step up into his boots as senior centurion should the need arise, which is why I tend to take them everywhere and make sure that they know everything I know. As to the others, this is Centurion Dubnus, the long-haired gentleman is my slave and bodyguard, Arminius, and the centurion bowing the gangplank under his weight is Titus, the commander of my pioneer century.’ He turned back to the mist-covered waters. ‘And since I’m guessing it will take several hours for my command to straggle into port, I’ll leave the last three here to make sure that our men are handled appropriately when they stagger off the transports. As you suggest, let us decamp to somewhere both private and a little warmer?’

Turning away from the dockside he shot a hard glance at the German, raising an eyebrow and staring significantly at the heavy chests that were being craned over the warship’s side with ostentatious care by the crew. As each one touched the quayside a party of six heavily built men attached thick ropes to its carrying rings and hauled it over to where another half-dozen marines were guarding those that had gone before it, their demeanour that of men who knew how painful life could get were they to fail in their duty, and all conducted under the watchful eye of the close-lipped official who had accompanied them across the ocean. The camp prefect led them across the dock and into the fortress that loomed over it, walking swiftly to a transit barrack from whose chimneys lines of grey smoke were rising. Once they had taken off their cloaks and gone through the usual ritual of warming their hands at the glowing stove while the camp prefect thrust another log into its cherry-red belly and bid them to take their seats, Scaurus addressed the subject that had been raised at the quayside with the same note of concern in his voice.

‘So tell me, gentlemen, now that we have our privacy, is your news bad? Legatus Equitius was both a colleague and a friend to all three of us, and a good man besides.’

Prefect Castus looked to his colleague, who merely shook his head and beckoned him to continue with the tale.

‘You’re wondering if the legatus has been killed? It’s nothing that simple …’ He took a seat before continuing, gesturing to the other men to make themselves comfortable. ‘This will take some telling. You’ve been away in Germania for what, a year or so?’

Scaurus nodded.

‘Fifteen months. My cohorts’ initial mission to Tungrorum in Germania Inferior resulted in our being sent halfway across the empire to Dacia in defence of an imperial goldmine. It’s taken us half a year to make it back here, mainly due to the Danubius freezing solid for the best part of two months.’

Castus smiled knowingly, winking at Sorex.

‘Ah, there it is, just as I told you, Fulvius Sorex, Pannonia in the winter. Did you lose any men to the cold?’

Julius nodded, his face hard with the memory.

‘A few, until we learned not to put sentries out after dark during the worst of it.’

‘Yes indeed. Anyone foolish enough to make a move on you under such conditions would be stiff as a plank themselves long before they were in position to attack. But I digress. Suffice to say that a lot has happened in Britannia while you’ve been away. The Brigantes’ rebellion south of the wall was suppressed easily enough, given that the tribes to the north had been put down so hard before it started. I believe you played some part in that?’

‘We had a hand in it. Do continue, Prefect.’

Castus smiled indulgently at Scaurus.

‘I see you retain the same impatience you had as a younger man, Rutilius Scaurus, but I take your point. With the Selgovae, the Carvetii and the Votadini tribes all safely back in their boxes it was easy enough for Governor Marcellus to march his legions back south and rip through the Brigantes, and indeed he did so with such gusto that I expect they’ll be keeping their heads down for a good long time. Two men of military age crucified for every soldier that we lost, villages burned out for any hint of collaboration with the rebels, well, you know how it goes. The revolt collapsed almost overnight once the tribesmen realised that we were deadly serious about ending it, and that, we presumed, was that. I’d joined the Sixth Victorious by that time, and I was more than happy with what I found, a well-trained and aggressive legion whose commander was more than capable even if he did lack a thick stripe on his tunic.’

He shot a quick smile at the tribune, whose senatorial status was clear enough to the other men, and Sorex shrugged easily.

‘You know my views on the subject, Prefect Castus, a man doesn’t need to be of the senatorial class to have the ability to command a legion. Indeed Praetorian Prefect Perennis seems bent on removing the requirement, to judge from what I hear in my correspondence from Rome.’

Castus inclined his head in recognition of the point, flicking a glance across the Tungrian officers to find the young man who had been introduced as Centurion Corvus staring at Sorex with narrowed eyes, an expression which softened in an instant as he sensed the prefect’s gaze upon him.

‘So, all tribal uprisings in the legion’s operational area were defeated, and that, I assumed, would be that. The men were looking forward to the resumption of garrison duties and the chance to see the inside of a bathhouse again, while the centurions were planning some nice, hard patrolling to keep their troops in shape, and the occasional raid to make sure the natives knew who was on top. And, I have to say, I was in full agreement that this was the only sensible course of action given that the men had been at war for the best part of two years and were desperate for a rest and the chance to see the inside of their home fortresses again.’ Castus paused significantly for a moment. ‘And of course I was almost immediately proven to have it all wrong. Governor Marcellus had complete victory for the taking, but in that moment of triumph he over-reached himself. He decided to go one better than just restoring order to the north of the Emperor Hadrian’s wall and enforcing the peace from our existing line of forts. He decided instead to re-establish control of the northern tribes’ lands with boots on the ground, rather than simply following the decision that was made twenty years ago to simply leave them outside of the empire.’

Scaurus shook his head in disbelief.

‘Surely he didn’t … not the northern wall?’

‘He won’t get any closer to those chests than the rest of us managed. Those boys look every bit as keen as the marines were. And your lads aren’t going to make them any friendlier behaving like that, are they?’

Titus nodded his smug agreement with Dubnus’s bluntly stated opinion, and the two men watched pensively as Arminius strolled away from them up the quayside with his hands behind his back, ignoring the thirty-odd pioneers who were amusing themselves by sneering over at the legionaries and laughing with each other in the manner of men who were sharing a private joke. Their centurion took a deep breath of the sea-tinged air, inflating his barrel chest and rolling his massive head around his shoulders before replying.

‘And why send a barbarian to do a job that needs treading softly, eh? That boy’s never really happy without a sword in his hand and someone to fight.’

Predictably, the German got no closer to the chests than the nearest of the legionaries, who simply shook his head discouragingly and pointed wordlessly back at the watching Tungrian centurions. Arminius shrugged and turned away, pulling his cloak tighter about him as a wind from the sea swirled the mist that still hung in the air.

‘Told you so.’ Titus hooked a thumb over his shoulder at his men waiting patiently behind them. ‘The only way to get to see what’s in them would be to let my boys loose on those children …’

Dubnus shook his head in apparent disgust.

‘Bugger me, Bear, do you ever give it a rest? My boys this, my boys that …’ He spat over the quayside into the dark water swirling around the jetty’s thick wooden pilings. ‘I’ll tell you what, let’s swap. You can have a play with my century, and find out what it’s like commanding men with a little more in their favour than big muscles and loud voices, and I’ll give your boys a taste of real discipline, rather than all that warrior brotherhood rubbish you spoil them with.’

Titus smirked at his colleague in return, drawing himself up to his full height and looking down his nose at the irritated Dubnus.

‘Discipline? With a bunch of girly men you stole from a legion? Men their centurion was happy to see the back of given their habit of running away whenever a fight was at hand? Any of my boys could run your century, little brother, so why would I lower myself to such a thing?’ A crafty smile crept onto his face. ‘And besides, it takes a big man to control a herd of bulls like the Tenth, I’m not sure you’d be our sort of centurion, YourHighness.’

Castus nodded grimly at the Tungrian tribune.

‘Oh yes, he did. He ordered all three legions north again, minus a couple of cohorts apiece to keep control of the Brigantes, and he ordered all three of the legions’ legati to re-establish Roman control over the northern tribes in the only way he believed possible, by putting their lands inside the empire. He re-garrisoned the wall that the Emperor Antoninus built a hundred miles to the north of the wall raised by his predecessor Hadrian …’ The camp prefect sighed, shaking his head. ‘The idiot sent the legions north to re-occupy a defensive line that has been found to be untenable on the two previous occasions it has been manned. Even I, brand new to the province, could see that it was a mistake, and the gods know that the legati did their best to dissuade him from the idea, but you know what a stubborn old bastard he is once he has the bit between his teeth. The worst of it is that he did it without any reference to Rome, whose permission for such a rash move we can be sure would never have been forthcoming.’

Scaurus stared in disbelief at the older man.

‘Ulpius Marcellus took it upon his own head to set imperial frontier policy? Had he gone utterly mad?’

‘Apparently not, but he might as well have. Once it became clear to the legions that they were going to be occupying the new line of defence for the foreseeable future, well, they revolted, and pretty much to a man. The legionaries of the Twentieth went as far as to offer their legatus Priscus the purple, which was the one thing guaranteed to get the attention of Rome even if he did display the remarkably good sense to refuse their generous offer of the throne. Once the praetorian prefect got to hear about the whole sorry mess he started throwing orders around like the bride’s mother on the wedding day, understandably given that he’s effectively running the empire, and none of it was ever going to be pretty. The governor’s already gone, of course, recalled to Rome by a fast courier for an interview without wine with some fairly serious characters, I’d imagine, and with his career in tatters around him.’

He shook his head again.

‘He’ll be lucky to keep his head on his shoulders. The legion commanders were next on the list, naturally enough, although the orders were for them to hand over command to their senior tribunes and step down to await replacements from the capital. The rumour, as the despatch rider told me once I had him appropriately well oiled, is that Prefect Perennis intends to put equestrian officers in command of all three legions in order to teach the senate a sharp lesson as to the realities of power, promoting men who learned their trade in command of auxiliary cohorts like yours …’

‘And so there you have it, gentlemen.’ Tribune Sorex’s voice rode over his colleague’s with the ease of a man born and raised to rule those around him. ‘Legatus Equitius is confined to the fortress at Yew Grove, with all of the respect due to his rank of course, and I am empowered to keep the legion in hand. Soon enough now I expect a new legatus to take command of Sixth Victorious, and a new governor to deliver the orders which I expect will have us marching south again.’

Julius looked at him with a questioning expression.

‘You’re still occupying the northern wall, Tribune?’

Sorex shrugged.

‘Of course we are, Centurion. We were ordered to do so by the previous governor and we’ve received no orders to withdraw since then, only the despatch which called Ulpius Marcellus home and relieved the three legions’ legati of their commands. An uncontrolled withdrawal could quickly turn into an undisciplined rush south, or worse, trigger another mutiny. So, for the time being we hold all twenty-six of the northern wall’s forts, and we will continue to do so until ordered to withdraw by the replacement legion commanders.’

Tribune Scaurus stroked his chin, his eyes narrowed in thought.

‘All of which is very interesting, and I greatly appreciate the time taken by two august personages such as yourselves to come all the way out to the end of the wall to brief me, although I doubt it needed both, or even either of you to pass a message that could just as easily have been delivered, albeit without quite such sensitivity, by a centurion.’ He stood up, turning his back to the stove and luxuriating in its heat before looking down at the two men with a look that combined curiosity with an edge of irritation.

‘So, am I right, gentlemen?’

Dubnus shook his head in mock amazement.

‘Our sort of centurion? There’s the problem, right there! You’ve let them get soft, big brother, unused to the touch of proper discipline. I pity whoever gets them when you stop a bluenose spear, or finish your twenty-five and go to live out your days with some pig-ugly giant of a woman who’ll be able to suffer you on top of her without bursting. That poor bastard will have to use a tree trunk for a vine stick, won’t he! And you can shove that “your highness” crap right up your big fat arse, the days when my father ruled in the lands south of Hadrian’s Wall are dead and gone.’

Titus laughed aloud, well used to their habitual arguments about the way he led his men and delighted to have drawn blood with his jibe.

‘I shouldn’t worry your pretty head on the subject, Prince Dubnus, you’ll never have command of my boys. I plan on outliving you, given your habit of throwing yourself into the thick of the fight at the first opportunity. You’ll be the one who ends up as a pincushion, not me!’

The two men grinned at each other, ignoring Arminius who was shaking his head in disgust at their argument.

‘Two grown men arguing as to who’s got the biggest prick? If your first spear was here, he’d be telling you both to get a grip.’

The two centurions turned to look at him with hard smiles, and Dubnus smirked in amusement.

‘And this from a long-haired slave whose main duty is to test the heat of his master’s bath!’

The German raised a sardonic eyebrow.

‘Serving Rutilius Scaurus has many benefits that you may not have considered, Dubnus. Remember all those dinner parties he was invited to at every fort we camped outside on our march back up the Rhenus? While you were taking your pick of the rather thin selection of overpriced and underwhelming whores on offer, I was taking my pick of the female servants in a nice warm kitchen, once I’d eaten my fill. And, I’ll remind you, I get to know where we’re going long before it filters down to your level.’

He paused, looking at the chests in their orderly line along the quayside.

‘So I’ll tell you this for nothing: from my experience of senior officers, the way those two invited our boy for a private chat, there’s no way we’re going to be strolling back to whatever dunghill it is you’re keen to get back to any time soon.’

Prefect Castus looked at his colleague with an expression which very clearly communicated that his part of the briefing was at an end.

‘As I told you, Fulvius Sorex, Rutilius Scaurus has lost neither his perceptive abilities nor his direct manner in the last ten years. I suggest you enlighten him as to our purpose in coming here.’

Sorex nodded, stepping forward.

‘Yes, that’s astute of you, Rutilius Scaurus. We could indeed have sent a junior officer to bring you the latest news, which means, as you have already surmised, that your presence here presents us with something of an opportunity.’

Marcus spoke, his voice suitably respectful despite the question’s sharp edge.

‘It’s more than that, isn’t it, Tribune? We present you with the only means possible to get something done, something you judge to be vital?’

Scaurus stared at the young centurion for a moment before turning back to Sorex with a disarming smile.

‘Forgive my aide his temerity, colleague, he does have the tendency to speak out of turn when something occurs to him, although on this occasion I suspect he’s cut to the heart of the matter. Do continue, Centurion Corvus.’

The young centurion spoke again, his voice clear and hard in the barrack’s silence.

‘From what you’ve said, Tribune, every other military unit in the whole northern military zone is under orders to hold position, orders with all the weight of the throne behind them. The sort of orders that a man disregards at the risk of his career, his life and even his family’s lives, if he miscalculates badly enough. And here we are, as if sent by our Lord Mithras himself, the answer to your prayers for a force of men big enough to do whatever it is you think needs doing, and not subject to the restrictions placed upon your freedom of action by Prefect Perennis.’

In the young centurion’s mouth the praetorian prefect’s name become something akin to an expression of hatred, spat from between bared teeth with the vehemence of a man ridding his mouth of venom sucked from a snake bite. Scaurus spoke quickly, taking back the focus of attention, his voice deliberately breezy.

‘My man Corvus has the measure of it, I suspect. So what is it that needs doing so badly that you’ve both come all this way to meet a pair of travel-weary auxiliary cohorts off the boat from Germania Inferior?’

Sorex leaned forward, lowering his voice in spite of their privacy in the barrack.

‘Sixth Victorious is a legion with unfinished business, Tribune Scaurus. We lost an eagle in the first days of the northern tribes’ rebellion, and with it the head of Legatus Equitius’s predecessor Sollemnis, both lost in an ambush sprung north of the wall by a tribal leader called Calgus-’

Scaurus waved a dismissive hand.

‘Don’t trouble yourself with the history lesson, colleague. The centurions here both fought in that battle, and witnessed your legion’s betrayal by one of your predecessors, although I expect his part of the disaster has been quietly forgotten since then, given who his father was.’ He paused and waited for Sorex to acknowledge the open secret that it was the praetorian prefect’s son who had orchestrated the Sixth Legion’s disastrous losses for his own ends. ‘Centurion Corvus was part of the fruitless hunt for the legion’s lost eagle, and all three of us subsequently took revenge upon Calgus and his tribe for their actions.’

Sorex took a moment to master his irritation at being cut off.

‘I see. Well then, you may find my news on the subject of the eagle, the legatus’s head and this fellow Calgus of interest. We have intelligence that all three are gathered in the same place, ripe for capture.’

Marcus shook his head with an expression of disbelief.

‘That’s impossible, Tribune. I killed Calgus before we left the province.’

Sorex raised a patrician eyebrow.

‘You killed him, Centurion? You actually saw him die? Because the way I’ve heard it, he was crippled and left for dead by a Roman officer, in the expectation that the wolves would find him and exact an unpleasantly slow death. Except, it seems, by means which I neither understand nor particularly care about, he managed to avoid such a gruesome end. And more to the point, Centurion Corvus, he apparently still has possession of my legion’s eagle. An eagle whose loss, as you all well know, puts the Sixth on borrowed time and at constant risk of being cashiered and broken up to reinforce the other legions. In its place another legion will be raised, and the Sixth’s officers will either be sent to serve elsewhere under the cloud of their shame or simply dismissed from imperial service in disgrace, with their careers at a premature and ignominious end. All of which means that it will come as no surprise to you that before formally relinquishing his command to me, Legatus Equitius charged me with achieving just one task before his replacement arrives. He ordered me to spare no effort in finding and retrieving the Sixth Legion’s eagle, and I gave him my word that I would do so. And let me assure you, gentlemen, whatever else I may or may not be, I am certainly a man of my word.’

Prefect Castus leaned forward again, his gaze locked on Scaurus.

‘So here we are, Rutilius Scaurus, in possession of detailed knowledge of where the legion’s eagle waits impatiently to be retrieved, but without a single man we can task to its rescue without putting them at risk of dreadful retribution if their disobedience is discovered. Not to mention the strong potential for our own execution. But you and your men are subject to no such restriction. You can be away into the frontier zone in hours, and have the Sixth’s eagle safely back in friendly hands within days, not to mention the dead legatus’s head. It’s time the poor man was made whole, and allowed to sleep in peace with his reputation restored, and you’re just the men to bring that about, I’d say.’

When Scaurus and his officers returned to the dock in the company of the legion officers they were greeted by the sight of the first of the Tungrian cohort’s transports sidling up to the quayside. The ship had a round-bottomed hull, having been constructed for carrying capacity rather than for speed, and, with its sails for the most part lowered and only enough canvas spread to allow it to crawl carefully into port, it was wallowing on the incoming tide in a way that Marcus knew from grim experience would be making the men on board queasy and eager to disembark.

‘That’s your century, isn’t it, Dubnus?’

The big man stared hard at the ship for a moment before nodding his agreement.

‘Yes. There’s my miserable sod of a standard bearer busy heaving his breakfast over the side. A shame to have got so close to dry land and still not manage to keep your biscuits down.’ He winked at Titus and Marcus before snapping to attention and throwing tribune and first spear a vigorous salute, his facial expression the epitome of determination. ‘I’ll go and get them disembarked and off into the transit barracks, with your permission First Spear?’

Julius nodded, and Titus waved him away with a dirty look, leaning close to Marcus and muttering a comment in a rumbling tone so that only his colleague would hear it.

‘Someone needs to tell that boy that sucking up isn’t going to get him anywhere. Look at the smirk on the camp prefect’s face.’

The two centurions stared at the scene before them on the quay’s worn planks. The warship Mercurius had undocked and was backing away from the quay, the oarsmen pulling its heavy hull away from the land with slow, rhythmic strokes while the marines on deck stared impassively down at the legion centuries standing guard over the ten chests they had delivered from Germania. Julius looked over at the legionaries, then back at the warship’s slowly receding bulk.

‘They’ll anchor in the channel to make room for another transport, so you can bet that Tribune Sorex is going to want to get those chests away before another century of our lads is dumped into his lap, if they contain what we’re all thinking.’

The legion tribune was engaged in brisk discussion with the procurator who had accompanied the cargo across the German Sea, consulting a writing tablet that the other man had produced for his perusal. As the Tungrian officers watched, Avus pulled a purse from his belt and tipped out a handful of coins for the tribune to examine, waiting while Sorex picked one and raised it for closer examination. Titus’s eyes narrowed as he watched the two men discussing the chests’ contents, and at length he growled a single word.

‘Gold.’

Marcus nodded his agreement with his friend’s opinion.

‘Indeed. And if each of those chests is filled with coins like that one then we’re looking at enough money to pay all three Britannia legions for a year or more.’

Sorex placed the coin back in the official’s hand and nodded, gesturing to the nearest of the chests. He waited while the heavy lock was opened, waving the closest soldiers away before raising the lid and peering at the contents for a moment. Julius snorted, sharing a moment of amusement with his tribune.

‘Now there’s a man with temptation put before him.’

‘I doubt it.’ Marcus and Julius turned to look at Prefect Castus who had moved silently to stand alongside the first spear. ‘The tribune’s father is an extremely rich man. I doubt that the sight of even that much gold is going to excite him when his father’s property in Rome is probably easily worth two or three times as much. He’ll make very sure that the chests are carefully watched though, set guards upon the guards so to speak.’

Marcus frowned at the sight of the tribune moving on to the next chest and waving a hand to order the procurator to open it for his perusal.

‘What’s it all for, Camp Prefect? Why bring so much money into the country in one shipment and risk losing the lot in the event of a storm?’

Castus shrugged.

‘That sort of information is beyond my need to know, I’m relieved to say. My job is simply to make sure that it all gets to Yew Grove without any of it going missing, after which I shall bury it nice and safely in the treasury next to the chapel of the standards and then start praying for that gaping empty space in the chapel where there should be an eagle to be filled before the empire finally runs out of patience with the Sixth.’

He looked out into the mist, tipping his head to a dark spot which was slowly coalescing into the shape of another transport creeping into port to take the place vacated by the now invisible warship.

‘And here’s another one of your ships. I’d better go and get that gold moving, before Fulvius Sorex starts getting nervous at the thought of your soldiers dribbling on his precious cargo. He already looks about as twitchy as a stores officer presented with a century of new recruits to equip.’

The Tungrian Fifth Century disembarked from their transport with the look of men who were profoundly relieved to have their boots back on solid ground for good after a week spent hugging the coast of Germania, Gaul amp; Britannia. Several men bent wearily to kiss the quay’s wooden planks, while others touched amulets or simply muttered prayers of thanks for their safe delivery to land. Their chosen man Quintus, responsible for the century when Marcus was elsewhere, busied his soldiers with the routine of parading in their usual marching formation alongside the cohort’s other centuries, inspecting each man’s equipment to ensure that none of them had managed to leave anything aboard the transport in their relief at reaching dry land. Discovering that one of the younger soldiers had managed to mislay both his dagger and the iron butt-spike from one of his spears, his voice was once again raised in a tirade of abuse as the mortified soldier scrambled back up the gangplank and onto the ship in the forlorn hope of recovering his equipment from the acquisitive hands of the transport’s crew. The century’s standard bearer, a stocky man whose lined and weather-beaten face gave him the look of a man comfortably past the age of retirement from imperial service, chuckled happily and muttered an aside to one of the men behind him.

‘There’s another, which makes four. One more and I win the wager.’

The veteran to whom he was speaking shook his head with a grin, looking down the quay at the figure walking towards them.

‘I doubt it, Morban old mate. I’d say you’re out of time …’

The standard bearer shook his head in disgust, saluting tiredly as his centurion stopped a few paces away and received Quintus’s salute, formally assuming command of the Fifth once more.

‘Oh yes, here he comes now, looking as fresh as any man that’s enjoyed a good night’s sleep. Bloody typical, we get to lurch across the sea in that leaky puke bucket while the favoured few are entertained on a racing hound of a warship. They were probably here hours ago, with time for a few beakers of wine while they waited for us to roll into harbour …’

Marcus ignored his standard bearer’s usual monologue of discontent for a moment, looking up and down the ranks of his century with an eye on his men’s physical state after the best part of a week afloat and finding their faces on the whole considerably more cheerful than he would have expected. Turning back to the grumbling veteran he put out a hand for the century’s standard, smiling grimly at the reluctance with which Morban handed it over.

‘It seems that the sea air has disagreed with more than your temper, eh Standard Bearer?’

Frowning in apparent non-comprehension, the burly soldier looked up at his officer questioningly.

‘Centurion?’

Marcus lowered the standard until its metal laurel-wreath-encircled hand was inches from Morban’s nose.

‘Unless my eyes deceive me, Standard Bearer, this once faultless symbol of our century’s pride is showing signs of rusting. I suggest that you improve its appearance considerably before we parade again, or my disappointment will be both vocal and prolonged.’

He turned back to the ranks of soldiers, raising his voice to be heard.

‘How many of you were sick during the voyage, I wonder? One hand in the air if you managed to avoid vomiting the whole way from Germania.’

Thirty or so hands went up, and the young centurion turned back to Morban with a smile.

‘And you were giving odds on how many men being sick, Morban? Forty?’

A voice sounded from the front rank, the gravelly rasp of a soldier called Sanga who was one of the century’s stalwarts.

‘It was forty-five, Centurion.’

‘I see. Oh dear …’ Marcus made a show of reaching for his writing tablet and checking the numbers inscribed upon it before speaking again. ‘So if there are sixty-eight men in the century, of whom nearly half managed to hold on to the contents of their stomachs …’ Shaking his head in mock pity, Marcus turned back to Morban. ‘You’ve a long memory when it comes to odds, haven’t you, Standard Bearer? Doubtless you recalled the voyage over to Germania last year, and how we were tossed mercilessly by waves the whole way there. As I recall it, hardly any of us survived without throwing up on that voyage, myself included. Unlike the one we’ve just completed, with hardly a swell to bother us. So, what odds were you offering?’

‘One as per man under or over the target, Centurion.’

Marcus smiled again at Sanga’s confirmation of what he had suspected.

‘I see. A rusty standard and a purse made considerably lighter than you might have wished. Isn’t life just a valley of tears some days?’ He leaned to speak quietly into Morban’s ear, his lowered voice hard in tone. ‘Polish that standard, Morban, polish it to within an inch of its life. Make it shine as if it were solid gold fresh from the jeweller’s workbench, or you’ll find yourself watching another man carrying it, and adopting your status as an immune while you forge a new and exciting career in waste disposal. Latrine detail beckons you, Standard Bearer, if I don’t find that proud symbol of my century’s pride in the condition I expect at my next inspection.’

He turned back to the troops, looking up and down their line as his brother officers and their chosen men chivvied their soldiers into order. Julius’s trumpeter blew the signal for the cohort to come to attention, the call promptly repeated by each century’s signaller, and Tribune Scaurus walked out in front of his men with a slow, deliberate gait, stopping a dozen paces from their ranks and looking up and down the long line of weary faces. The soldier who had been sent to search for his equipment bolted back down the gangplank with a look of terror at the scowl on Quintus’s face, throwing himself into the century’s formation just as the tribune drew breath to address them. Tribune Sorex and Camp Prefect Castus stood off to one side, and Marcus noticed a group of four men gathered behind them, each of them wearing a black cloak over his thick brown tunic.

‘Soldiers of the First Tungrian Cohort! In the time that it has been my honour to command you, we have performed deeds that I would have considered unlikely, perhaps even impossible, only two years ago! We have faced the tribes that inhabit the north of this province on the battlefield half a dozen times! In Germania Inferior we put paid to the schemes of the bandit leader Obduro, and in Dacia we not only took part in a successful defence of the province, but we also saved enough gold from the traitor Gerwulf to pay every soldier in a legion for three years!’

He paused, looking across his seven hundred men with a proud smile.

‘Gentlemen, at every opportunity for any man here to have folded under the pressure of the odds against us, not one of you has ever failed to stay faithful and loyal to the emperor, to your cohort and to each other!’ He paused again, looking across the silent ranks. ‘Soldiers of the First Tungrian Cohort, I salute you for it.’

Drawing himself up, he saluted to the left and right, and Marcus heard a hoarse voice whisper loudly enough for him to hear.

‘Fuck me, but this ain’t lookin’ good. What odds you offering we’re straight back into the fuckin’ shit again, eh Morban?’

A second later he heard the loud crack of brass on iron as Quintus stabbed out from behind the century with the shining brass-bound end of the six-foot-long pole that was his badge of office, snapping Sanga’s helmet forward with a sharp blow. Up and down the cohort’s length hard-bitten non-commissioned officers were administering similar summary justice to these men whose amazement at the tribune’s gesture had got the better of their discipline, and Scaurus regarded them with a knowing smile on his face.

‘And so, Tungrians, I have news for you!’ A sudden and profound hush fell over the parade, as the usual fidgeting and whispering died away to utter and complete silence. The tribune paused for a moment before continuing as if weighing his words before speaking, smiling into the face of his men’s eager anticipation. ‘You are doubtless all very keen to return to your barracks on The Hill — and in due course, I am sure that you will! For now, however, we will be based at another fort a little more distant …’ He paused for a moment, and the entire parade seemed to hold its breath. ‘We will be marching north, to take up a position on the wall built by Antoninus Pius!’

The silence was gone in an instant, chased away by the muttered comments and curses of hundreds of men as this news sank in, and Scaurus looked around again with the same knowing smile while his centurions swung and faced their men with hard faces, more than one of them striding forward to wield his vine stick at a hand or a knee in swift punishment. Silence fell again, the front rank’s faces now mostly set in lines of sullen disappointment and, in a few cases, pure anguish.

‘I realise that this news is unlikely to delight you gentlemen, that much is obvious! But we will do our duty as ordered!’

He stepped back with a nod to Julius, and the first spear advanced until he was only a few yards from the grim faces of the cohort’s front rank.

‘Like the Tribune said, we will do our duty as ordered! If any of you cunt hunters entertain fond ideas of slipping away after darkness, now that you’re so close to the pleasures of home, think again! Firstly, the local fornication opportunities are limited to a few worried-looking cattle …’ He paused for effect. ‘And no, the nearest brothel is not close enough for you to ride to it on an ox. And secondly, if any man here is missing at tomorrow morning’s roll call then not only is he under an immediate death sentence when he’s recaptured, but I’ll have his tent mates flogged until their backs are raw meat.’ He paused again, smiling at the soldiers arrayed before him. ‘And just so we’re clear, if an entire tent party decides to go missing together then I’ll have the rest of their century punished, so don’t any of you try to get clever. Centurions, fall your centuries out into the transit barracks and send your men to the fort’s stores in numerical order for rations and urgent equipment replacements, starting with the Tenth Century and counting down. We march north at first light tomorrow.’

‘The little that we know as to the whereabouts of the Sixth Legion’s eagle is the product of only a very little hard information, and rather more supposition than I like if I’m completely honest, now that Fulvius Sorex isn’t here to put the optimistic side of the story. If ever a man was destined for high office …’

Camp Prefect Castus leaned forward and tapped a finger at the map he had unrolled across the table between himself and Scaurus, watched intently by Julius and Marcus. Tribune Sorex had ridden west once the Tungrian cohort’s tribune had agreed to undertake the proposed mission, leaving his colleague to impart what little they knew as to what had happened to the Sixth Legion’s standard after its capture. The four black-cloaked men that Marcus had seen standing behind him on the parade ground were arrayed across the room’s rear wall, their faces closed to his scrutiny by expressions of boredom and disinterest.

‘This is the place where I believe the eagle is to be found. And given the location, its retrieval will be no simple task.’

The Tungrian officers leaned over the map to see where his finger was planted. Scaurus inhaled sharply, shooting a hard glance at Castus before looking back to the map with a calculating expression.

‘Gods below, Artorius Castus, I might have been a little slower to accept your challenge had I known where it would send us!’ He turned to his first spear and shook his head. ‘How much do you fancy that then, eh Julius? It seems that this missing eagle has chosen to roost a day’s march north of the Antonine Wall, and deep enough into Venicone territory that we could find ourselves facing more of those tattooed maniacs than we can handle. Not to mention the fact that one or two of them might well recall the day we left the Red River clogged with their dead.’

The Tungrian first spear looked down at the map with obvious disgust.

‘Can we rely on any support from the legions based on the wall?’

Castus shook his head with an expression of regret.

‘To be blunt, First Spear, I’m afraid not. The legions’ detachment commanders are all very clear that the first man to stir from his given position without clear orders to do so will be taking a risk with his rank, and that such a loss of status might well be the very least of his problems. There’s not a man among them who will send out anything more aggressive than a party to gather firewood.’ Castus shrugged at them with an apologetic expression. ‘Sorry, but there it is. There’s no point trying to polish this particular turd …’

Marcus cleared his throat as he stepped forward, drawing curious glances from the men around the table.

‘But you do have some assistance to offer us, don’t you, Prefect? Why else would those men standing behind you be privy to the preparations for a mission which needs to be planned with as much secrecy as possible?’

Castus nodded, clearly suppressing a smile.

‘All in good time, Centurion. First we’ll be clear as to exactly what it is that you’ll be faced with.’ He waved a hand at the land around the eagle’s presumed location. ‘The Antonine Wall was built along the line of two rivers, the Clut to the west and the Dirty River to the east. The ground to the north is open, in the main, but there is a range of hills that runs away from the wall to the north-east, and that’s where we think the eagle has come to rest. The range is split in two by the valley of the Dirty River, and where the hills rise again to the north of the stream there’s a particularly steep peak on which the Venicones have built themselves a fortress so strong, and indeed so difficult to even access, that it has never been attacked by our forces, not even during the glory days when Gnaeus Julius Agricola briefly conquered the far north. He was wise enough to leave a pair of cohorts to stop anyone getting in or out of the place, and the tribesmen eventually staggered out half dead from hunger, after which the commander on the spot tore out the fortress’s gates and knocked some good-sized holes in the walls to make it indefensible. While the wall was manned it was kept under close watch, but the Venicones rebuilt it pretty much straightaway once we’d pulled back to the southern wall and left them to their own devices twenty years ago.’

He looked about the gathered officers with a wry smile, tapping at the Venicone fortress’s place on the map.

‘Imagine, a fortress built from stone atop a five-hundred-foot-high hill, a hill with a southern slope so steep that an armoured man would struggle to climb it even if he weren’t being showered with rocks and arrows. It looms over the valley of the Dirty River like a tooth poking out of the hilltop, and the Venicones have long since called it “The Fang” as yet another way to intimidate their enemies. One of their tribesmen we captured a fortnight ago coughed up the news that your old enemy Calgus has taken up residence there, bringing the Sixth’s eagle with him, and has managed by some devious means to install a new king, a man who is therefore well disposed towards him. So, far from lying dead where you left him with his bones scattered by the wolves, the man that sparked this bloody mess of a rebellion is now the controlling influence behind the deadliest of the northern tribes. And the Venicones, should I need to remind you, were never completely smashed. Unlike the Damnonii and the Selgovae they retain much of their strength, and all of their threat. So your task is simple enough, gentlemen. You must cross the valley of the Dirty River, an unmapped morass of swamps and sinkholes that will swallow an armoured man whole in an instant, never to be seen again. That done you must enter The Fang, by means either overt or covert, recover the eagle and, if at all possible, finish the job with Calgus while you’re at it. That man will continue to plague us until his head decorates the legate’s desk in Yew Grove.’

Scaurus turned to his centurions.

‘Well now gentlemen, you heard the choices on offer. Will our approach to this task be overt or covert?’

Julius shared a momentary exchange of glances with Marcus before replying.

‘An open approach will bring the Venicones down upon us like a hammer falling on a clutch of eggs. We only escaped their wrath the last time we met because the gods sent us a storm to make the river between us impossible to cross, and I’m pretty sure that they’ll remember the design on our shields well enough, given how many of them we killed that day. The merest sight of us with our boots on their turf will be enough to bring them out to confront us in force. But if we send a scouting party to infiltrate this fortress in the sky unsupported they will almost certainly be run down and captured before they can return to the wall, if the Venicones’ strength is mustered around their fortress. We must find some way to lure these tribesmen away from The Fang, and allow whoever makes the silent approach a fighting chance of escaping with the eagle. Will you allow me to think on it for a while and to consult with my centurions?’

Scaurus nodded and turned back to the camp prefect.

‘And now, Castus Artorius, perhaps the time is right for you to introduce us to these silent assassins who lurk behind you?’

Castus frowned back at him with an apparent expression of consternation.

‘Assassins, Tribune? Whoever mentioned such a term?’

The younger man smiled wryly at him, shaking his head in amusement.

‘Nobody. And nobody needed to mention it for my mind to go back ten years to the German Wars. I seem to recall that you gathered a similarly nondescript group to you then as well, men whose natural demeanour was to fade into the background and leave the posturing to the soldiers while they quietly got on with doing whatever unpleasant but necessary task was required. So tell me, Prefect, what skills have you assembled to do your dirty work this time?’

The prefect gestured to the tallest of the four.

‘I’ll allow their leader to explain what his men are capable of. Drest here is that rare commodity, a Thracian possessed of both patience and subtlety, and I have learned to trust his judgement implicitly. And now, since my tired old feet are sorely in need of a dip in some hot water, I’ll leave you to it. Drest?’

He closed the barrack door behind him, leaving the two groups of men eyeing each other. The man to whom he had signalled stepped forward and bowed fractionally, extending a hand to his comrades.

‘Tribune, Centurions, allow me to introduce my colleagues.’ His voice was soft, but when Marcus stared at him he found the return gaze hard and uncompromising. ‘These two young men are Ram and Radu, twin brothers raised on the plans of Pannonia in worship of the sword …’

‘They worship the sword? They’re Sarmatae?’

Julius’s voice was cold, but both Drest’s expression and his voice remained level.

‘They were Sarmatae, First Spear, before their tribe, the Iazyge, rose against Rome and they were taken captive and enslaved. Prefect Castus found them in a slave market, and outbid a dozen other would-be buyers at my suggestion to secure their ownership.’

‘At your suggestion?’

Drest turned back to Marcus.

‘Indeed, Centurion. It is my pleasure to serve Prefect Castus, and to provide him with the benefit of my experience in the procurement of men with certain rare skills, men whose services will enhance his ability to discharge his responsibilities to the empire. In this case, since I see the question in your eyes, I suspected that these men’s origins might have endowed them with certain abilities with bladed weapons. Their tribe are famed for their skills with spear and sword, and those expectations proved to have been well founded.’ He studied the Roman with a curious expression. ‘Speaking of skill at arms, I believe that you, Centurion, have some reputation with your swords? Your men call you “Two Knives”, after the Dimachieri, the gladiators who fight with two swords, I hear?’

The young Roman smiled thinly.

‘You hear a lot, it seems. Is that the skill that you bring to the Prefect’s service?’

The answering smile was equally uncompromising, the small group’s leader clearly untroubled by the status of the soldiers before him.

‘An ability to listen is indeed one of the abilities I bring to my master’s service, Centurion. As to Ram and Radu, I suggest that you might like to train with them when the opportunity arises, and take your own gauge of their prowess. I find their speed quite breathtaking on occasion, especially when they meet opponents with sufficient skill to push them to their limits. Perhaps you might have sufficient skill to bring out their best …’

Julius snorted a quiet laugh into his hand and Marcus smiled again, his eyebrows arching in genuine amusement.

‘And there’s another of those skills for which the Prefect selected you, I imagine? The ability to probe at a man’s defences with nothing deadlier than words, seeking to pique his pride and thereby betray his weakness?’

Drest bowed again, his expression equally amused.

‘And I see that I have met my match in you, Centurion.’

Marcus shook his head.

‘And I doubt you’ve even really tried yet, have you? But when the appeal to pride fails, perhaps there’s an ego that can be massaged?’

The Thracian raised his hands in a gesture of surrender.

‘In which case, enough! I’ll deploy more of my verbal lock picks later, when I can see more clearly which one to use. It is my experience that there is no man alive whose personality will not open to me if I only find the right tool. Speaking of which, allow me to introduce the other member of our small but efficiently constructed band. This is Tarion, an Illyrian from Virunum, in the province of Noricum.’

He waved the last man forward, and as Tarion bowed to the officers, his face carefully neutral, Julius shook his head in confusion, waving a hand at the knife hanging from his belt.

‘I see no sword on this man’s belt, only that toothpick. How can he fight when he lacks any proper weapon?’

Drest nodded to his colleague, who put a hand into his tunic and then flicked it forward with the fingers opening as if he were performing a magic trick. A slim sliver of polished iron hissed across the room between Marcus and Julius and buried itself in the wooden wall behind them.

‘Check the point of impact, if you would Centurion?’

Marcus smiled to himself again at the peremptory tone of command in Drest’s voice, staring back at him for a moment to make the point that this fresh verbal trick had not gone unnoticed before turning on his heel and examining the spot where the blade protruded from the wood, still quivering from its impact with its point neatly bisecting a small knot in the thick plank.

‘Not only can Tarion throw a blade to hit a target the size of a man’s eye, but the “toothpick” he carries on his belt is quite the most deadly weapon I have ever seen when used at close quarters. While a man armed with a sword is still struggling to bring his weapon to bear, Tarion will have stepped in close, opened his throat and then moved on to his next victim. But I can assure you that he was not selected for his abilities with knives; they were a happy discovery once his service had been secured from the magistrate in Virunum.’

Julius’s face darkened in disapproval.

‘He was a bandit?’

Drest shrugged.

‘It would be more appropriate to use the term “thief”. Tarion here was before the magistrate having been caught with his hand upon another man’s purse, a crime compounded by his then committing the worst possible error for a man in his line of work, namely failing to run fast enough when the fingers were pointed.’

‘So he’s not only a thief, but not even a good one? What use would we have for a dishonest incompetent?’

Drest shrugged in the face of Julius’s scorn.

‘That’s hardly for me to say, I have such a small basis for comparison. Perhaps the man himself might venture an opinion?’

He gestured to the thief, whose face was set in what Marcus assumed was professional neutrality.

‘I was caught because I broke my own rules and attempted to rob more than a single mark in the same place. The man was a merchant from the looks of him, and possessed of a purse so heavy that to have left it there unplucked seemed improper.’ He shrugged. ‘That was my mistake. He had the purse doubly secured to his belt by a hidden chain, having been robbed before. As to whether I am an effective thief, I’d say that you, First Spear, might be the best judge. I found this in your belt pouch as we were coming through the door …’

He held out his closed fist and opened the fingers to reveal Julius’s brass whistle resting on his palm. Dubnus sniggered behind his colleague, trying and failing to muffle his uncontrollable amusement behind a hand, and even Marcus was forced to smile at his brother officer’s discomfiture.

‘I’d say that’s sufficient evidence for us to accept that your man here has some ability in his chosen profession. But what good will it serve us? Our task is one of infiltration and murder, not the picking of merchants’ purses.’

Drest spoke up, stepping forward and taking the whistle from his comrade’s outstretched hand.

‘He’s a good deal more than a simple thief, Centurion. He has silent feet to complement his swift fingers, and an uncanny ability with a lock. If I were going to attempt to get into The Fang unnoticed, then he would be my first man over the wall.’

Scaurus spoke, having stood in silence while the introductions were made.

‘“If” being the operative word, as you so correctly identify. It is clear that Artorius Castus hopes that we will accept your services in this matter, and equally obvious that he reposes a good deal of trust in you, but you can be sure that I do not yet share his views as to your suitability.’ Drest stood in silence and waited for the tribune to continue, his expression untroubled, while Scaurus played a calculating look across his comrades. ‘Some proof of these abilities is called for.’

Drest shot the tribune an amused glance, clearly unabashed by the tribune’s status.

‘And you have a fairly specific idea as to how we might provide you with that proof, don’t you, Tribune?’

The Roman smiled grimly at him.

‘Indeed I do. But be very careful in considering whether or not you can accept this challenge. I’d imagine that the punishment for being caught attempting what I have in mind will involve a vigorous session on the sharp end of a scourge, rapidly followed by the enthusiastic application of a hammer and three big nails.’