The Eagle's Vengeance

3

The Tungrians paraded to march north again at first light the next day, Tullo’s tablet safely tucked away in a corner of Tribune Scaurus’s campaign chest. Drest and his companions were never far from Marcus’s place at the head on his Fifth Century, and as the Roman marched his men onto the parade ground he felt the eyes of the Sarmatae twins on his back. Julius and Scaurus stood in conversation for a few moments, the tribune emphasising his words with several chopping gestures into his empty palm, after which the muscular first spear stalked down the line of his centuries followed by a pair of men the soldiers had learned to give careful respect over the previous year. Going face-to-face with Castus’s mercenaries with the barbarian giant Lugos looming over one shoulder and Scaurus’s muscular servant Arminius at the other, the first spear stood for a moment in silence, allowing time for their threat to become apparent with his hard stare fixed on the Sarmatae twins’ bruised faces. Both of the men arrayed behind him were carrying their usual weapons, in Lugos’s case a war hammer so heavy that few other men could lift it without grunting and straining at the effort required, let alone wield it with the giant’s terrifying speed and power, one side of the weapon shaped into a pointed iron beak while the other sported a viciously hooked axe blade. Julius pointed to the twins, his face hard with purpose.

‘You pair of maniacs are a little bit too quick to start throwing sharp iron around for my tribune’s liking, so he’s instructed me to make it very clear to you that the use of swords for training bouts is specifically forbidden.’ Ram and Radu stared back with what Marcus, standing nearby, had strongly suspected was a deliberate failure to understand, and the first spear crooked a broad finger at Drest. ‘You, come here and translate this so there’s no chance of misunderstanding. You two, listen to me and don’t fucking interrupt unless you want a bloody good hiding.’

He waited for Drest to translate, smiling grimly as the threat of violence sank into the twins’ expressions.

‘These two men …’ He hooked a thumb back over his shoulder at the barbarians behind him. ‘… are the two nastiest bastards you’re ever likely to encounter, and they both seem to have a soft spot for Centurion Corvus for reasons I struggle to understand. So, in the event that either of you takes a blade to my centurion without my permission, they are both ordered to take their iron to you with equal vigour. And that, gentlemen, will mean that you will be fighting for your lives. Do. You. Understand?’

Both men listened to the translation with glum faces, nodding at its completion. Julius nodded dourly, speaking over his shoulder as he turned away to get the column moving.

‘Good. You two, watch them. And don’t wait for an order to deal with them if they get uppity, just put them out of the fight in any way you choose, and we’ll worry about the niceties afterwards.’

‘Niceties?’

Arminius smiled knowingly at Lugos’s frown. The hulking Selgovae tribesman’s grasp of Latin had improved over the months since his capture early in the campaign against Calgus, but many words still eluded his understanding.

‘Yes. Niceties. You know the sort of thing, finding a small coin to put in the dead man’s mouth for the ferryman. Gathering wood for a pyre.’

Lugos nodded solemnly.

‘Niceties. A good word. I would remember it.’

‘I will remember it.’

The big man turned to stare down at the Fifth Century soldier who had reflexively corrected him without any invitation to do so, his expression quizzical.

‘This is … wait, I remember … yes, this is … piss taking?’

‘No!’

The Tungrian’s eyes widened, and he raised his hands in disavowal of any idea that he might have been making fun of the Selgovae warrior looming over him. Lugos stooped his neck until his face was close to the soldier’s, who was prevented from shrinking away by the unhelpful refusal to budge of the men behind him, and patted his hammer’s roughly shaped iron beak.

‘Yes. Will. Is another good word. I will teach you not take piss. I will give you tickle with hammer. You will need “niceties”.’

Arminius peered around the big man at the terrified soldier, raising an eyebrow.

‘What he needs is a change of leggings, I’d say. Leave him alone you big horrible bastard, you’ve made your point.’

The Tungrians marched north again that morning at a fast pace, alternating the double march with the standard pace all day to cover the best part of thirty miles, their hobnailed boots rapping onto the parade ground at Three Mountains an hour before sunset. Julius watched his men stagger wearily onto the flat surface with an appraising stare, grateful that he’d not been carrying a shield, spears or a pack for the day’s march.

‘The men are just about shattered, Tribune, so I propose that just this once we might break the first commandment and allow them to use the marching camp that was left here last year when the Petriana wing cornered the Venicones in the ruins of the fort.’

The burned-out shell of the large fort that had guarded the road north before the northern tribes’ revolt stood before them, its soot-stained stone walls looming over the parade ground in mute testimony to the ferocity of the storm of iron that had washed over the empire’s northernmost defence under Calgus’s leadership. Tribune Scaurus nodded slowly, scanning the fort with hard eyes.

‘That looks like a punishment frame up there.’

Julius turned back to face him with a grim smile.

‘It is, and it was used to torture and kill one of our own not too long ago. One of the Petriana’s decurions told our own tame cavalry decurion the story, and Silus told it to me in turn one night after a few beers. It seems one of the Petriana’s officers had a hard-on for treasure, and used to go looting whenever he got the chance. Silus knew the man of course, and he told me that he kept his stolen gold in an oak chest that was always locked, with no one brave enough to try to rob him on account of how fierce he was. Anyway, although they never found out quite how it happened, the same night that our old friend Tribune Licinius managed to bottle up the Venicones in there — ’ he tipped his head at the fort’s blackened walls ‘- while he was chasing them north after we beat Calgus at the Battle of the Forest, the ink monkeys crept out in the dark and lured this gold-struck idiot into some sort of trap. They dragged him off into the fort, strapped him up there on that frame and went to work on him with their knives right in front of the cavalry lads, cut him a hundred times and then stuck a spear through each thigh and slit his belly wide open, but he never gave out as much as a squeak. Which, fool though he was, is not something I could have hoped to match under the same circumstances. In the end their king got bored of the whole thing and cut his throat, leaving him hanging up there as a lesson for the horse boys to keep their distance. Apparently when the tribune ordered his campaign chest to be opened there was enough gold in there to retire a legion century and still have enough left over for them to get pissed and laid every night for a month.’

Scaurus smiled wryly at the first spear.

‘The moral being not to get too greedy, eh?’

Julius barked out a laugh.

‘The moral being not to be so stupid as to wander away from your unit at night when there’s barbarians about, I’d say. Anyway, the fort’s unusable without a few days’ putting new gates up and the men are just about beaten for the day, so …’

The tribune nodded.

‘Agreed. It’s not as if there’s a barbarian army in the field. We’ll use the existing marching camp, but let’s not relax too much. We’ll do without listening patrols, since there won’t be anything to listen to out here, but let’s keep the guard routine nice and tight, shall we?’

‘I never thought I’d be so grateful to see another bloody legion fortress.’

Felicia glanced across at Annia with a look of concern, realising from her assistant’s pale face and look of discomfort that she was badly in need of a rest from the wagon’s constant rattling over the road’s cobbles. The high stone walls of Yew Grove had come into sight as the road had crested the last hill that lay between the gold convoy and its destination in the softening light of late afternoon, and the soldiers marching at the convoy’s front and rear had promptly started belting out a marching song at the tops of their voices.

‘They sound rather grateful too.’

Annia managed a strained smile at her friend’s straight-faced statement.

‘I’d imagine they’re sending a message to the vicus whorehouses, given that we’re less than a mile away from hot baths and free time.’

Felicia laughed.

‘You’re probably right. When did a man ever think with anything other than his stomach and what hangs from the end of it?’

She passed across the leather bottle which she had filled with tea brewed from the leaves of the raspberry bush the previous evening.

‘Another drink of this might help to ease the cramp?’

Annia waved it away with a disgusted expression.

‘I’ve already had enough of that for one lifetime. The midwives may well swear by it, but all I know is that it tastes like horse piss. Save it to offer your new suitor, one mouthful of that might shrivel his prick up for a day or two and stop him sniffing round you like a dog after a bitch.’

Felicia’s expression darkened. Tribune Sorex had met the convoy just after midday, escorted by several centuries of legionaries heading north under the command of a hard-faced centurion with a thick black beard and a long scar that bisected one eye and ran to his jaw.

‘On you march, Centurion Gynax, I’ll escort the gold back into the fortress. Good luck with your quest for the eagle!’

Gynax had saluted with what had looked to Felicia like a knowing look, and Sorex had sent his men on to the north with a lazy wave of one hand before reining his horse in alongside that of the camp prefect and chatting to his more experienced subordinate for a while. Once satisfied that no harm had befallen his precious cargo, he had dropped down the convoy’s line until the medical wagon had passed, falling in alongside the doctor with a broad smile.

‘Well now, ladies, how are you? I swear you both look more radiant then you did yesterday, if that’s possible!’

Annia, slumped heavily in her place on the wagon’s bench seat in a position intended to protect her from the road’s potholes, had regarded him with a disbelieving glare, and Felicia, sharing her discomfort at his insincerity, had answered with care.

‘And you, Tribune, you truly look as if you don’t have a care in the world. How do you keep such equanimity under such trying circumstances?’

Sorex had smiled back at her, allowing his hard gaze to linger on her body for longer than might have been polite.

‘Equanimity, madam? It’s simple enough. My gold is about to roll into the strong stone walls of a legion fortress, where it will be carried down into the chapel of the standards and placed under twenty-four hour guard …’

‘Your gold?’

He’d affected not to have heard Annia’s muttered response.

‘Apart from that, I have several centuries heading north to investigate a fresh piece of information as to the whereabouts of my legion’s missing eagle-’

Annia’s response was louder than before, and she’d leaned forward awkwardly with a questioning look.

‘You sent our men north yesterday to chase your eagle, following “unmistakable intelligence” as to the eagle’s whereabouts, as I heard it. So what news do you have now?’

Clearly taken aback at being questioned by a mere doctor’s orderly, he’d frowned at her for a moment before deciding to dignify the question with a response.

‘As it happens, madam, we have information that the lost eagle, far from residing in the Venicone fortress to the far north, may well have been sent south to dwell among the Brigantes. A sort of double bluff, if you like, hiding the thing where we are least likely to look for it. Of course the tip may be false, but I would be failing in my duty were I not to investigate the report, wouldn’t you say?’

Felicia had nodded, tapping her assistant’s ankle with her toe in warning.

‘Quite so, Tribune. I’m sure that you will be leaving no stone unturned in your search for such an emotive symbol of your legion’s pride.’

Sorex had bowed his head in recognition of her words, the predatory smile returning to his face.

‘Emotive! Just the term I would have used myself! You really are quite a lady, Doctor, both erudite and possessed of looks that would put Aphrodite to shame were a comparison ever possible. I look forward to seeing more of you!’

And with that he had spurred his horse back up the column, leaving the women staring after him in a combination of bemusement and disbelief. Annia shook her head in disgust, leaning back in the wagon’s uncomfortable bench seat.

‘Best beware that one, I’d say. I ran a whorehouse for long enough that I’ve seen thousands of men looking for sex, but only a very few with the look that one has about him. He’s a taker, and a cruel-looking bastard at that, and if you let him get you alone he’ll be buried up to his balls in you before you know it, and you without much choice in the matter I’d guess.’

Felicia had stared at the tribune’s receding back with a troubled expression.

‘Yes, I’ve seen that look before. It’s the one my first husband used to give to the women he regarded as being there solely for the purpose of conquest, once he had me safely married. As you say, I may have my work cut out to avoid the tribune’s attentions until our men return from the north.’

‘It just don’t feel right to me. It’s like going to a whorehouse without getting a few beers down your neck first.’

Spared the usual labour of throwing up a turf-walled marching camp, the Tungrians found themselves bemused at the opportunity to do nothing more than sit around their tents and talk, waiting for their rations to be prepared by those men deemed suitably skilled in the use of the big iron cook pots that each century dragged into their section of the camp from the mule carts that carried their tents.

Sanga grinned lopsidedly at the speaker, a soldier from the adjoining tent party by the name of Horta who was known to fancy himself as the big man whilst never quite finding the courage to square up to the party’s de facto leader and press his claim.

‘From what I’ve heard you’re more one for getting a few too many beers down your neck first, and then presenting your chosen lady of the evening with a length of saggy meat that’s no use to either of you!’

His mates guffawed quietly, used to his acerbic way and well-practised in giving him a taste of his own repartee if he persisted with levity at their expense, but Horta, it seemed, was less able to enter into the cut and thrust of the continuous jockeying for position that was part and parcel of life in the cohort.

‘Fuck you, Sanga, I can make any women squeal with delight!’

The men about him shook their heads in dismay, more than one of them wincing visibly. This, as they well knew, was not how the game was played. Sanga grinned at him again, his eyes slitting with calculation as he selected his response.

‘I have heard that from the ladies, to be fair.’ Heads lifted again, as the men around the pair waited for the follow up, knowing that the rough soldier was silently counting in his head as Horta nodded sagely, accepting the apparent compliment. ‘More than one of the whores we’ve both had has told me how happy she was to take your money in return for nothing worse than a peck on the cheek and a few reassuring words. So one or two of them must have squealed at the prospect of an hour off!’

The two tent parties collapsed in mirth, only Horta and his mate Sliga remaining stony faced.

‘Fuck you, Sanga!’

The veteran shook his head in bemusement, altering the tone of his voice to match that of the other soldier, albeit pitched two octaves higher.

‘“Fuck you, Sanga!” Is that it? Is that the best you can do, Sliga my old mate? No witty put down? Nothing better than “Fuck you, Sanga!”?’ He got up, brushing the grass’s damp from his tunic. ‘There’s no sport to be had here, I’m going to offer my services to Quintus for fetching water. Make sure there’s some dinner left for me if it arrives while I’m away, or I’ll be roasting a slice of one of your arses for my evening meal. You coming, Saratos, you barbarian bumboy?’

The Sarmatae got to his feet with a hard smile, flexing his biceps at the veteran soldier.

‘Yes, I come carry water for you. Can carry two bucket more than you, since you tired from fucking animals.’

Sanga nodded appreciatively.

‘There you go, Horta, that’s the way to do it. Take the insult and give it back with interest. And don’t be trying to stare me out, you pussy, not unless you want to lose that little battle as well.’ Horta blinked, and his tormentor raised his eyes to the sky in wry amusement. ‘See? Come on, Saratos. See you later, losers, we’re off to spend some time with real men.’

Felicia looked about their new quarters in the Yew Grove fortress’s vicus with an expression of relief, absent-mindedly stroking at the downy hairs on the head of the infant lolling slackly in her arms. The richly dressed woman who had led them from the gate to her house caught her stare and nodded apologetically, gesturing at the spare bedroom’s lamplit space, a pair of beds standing on a plain tiled floor, its walls simple white-washed plaster.

‘I’m sorry that I’ve nothing better to offer you. I know it’s not up to much.’

Annia spun round to face her, the movement made ponderous by her swollen belly.

‘You’re joking! We’re used to taking up residence in the fort’s medical quarters, with wounded soldiers watching our every move like hungry dogs waiting for a bone, or in a tent surrounded by a sea of iron and leather. Have you ever lived in the middle of a cohort in the field after a few days on campaign?’ The slightly built woman shook her head quickly, nervously fingering the collar of her rich wool stola that was the mark of a wealthy man’s companion, the garment somehow slightly incongruous on her elegantly spare frame. ‘You should try it, Domina, there’s nothing quite like the smell of eight hundred men rank with days of dried sweat, all of them reeking of badly wiped arses and the stale cum left on their tunics from furtive nighttime wanking.’

The woman had introduced herself as Desidra at the fortress’s gate, and had seemed nervous in the presence of the tribune and his men, keen to gather the women about her and be away from under their hungry eyes, and Felicia saw the same uncertainty in her as she raised her eyebrows, clearly taken aback by Annia’s words. She took their hostess’s hand in a warm two-handed grip.

‘Ignore her, Domina, she’s just tired and grumpy from carrying that baby for the best part of nine months, not to mention a two-day cart ride from the coast with legionaries making crude gestures at her at every turn.’

Annia nodded with a hint of a smile.

‘Cheeky bastards. And me the scourge of every soldier within fifty miles of my old establishment. In my prime I only had to look at one of those mules with the merest hint of discouragement and they’d be falling over themselves to get back in my graces. If there was no smile from Annia then there’d be no pussy for him from any of my girls that night.’

The mistress of the house’s painstakingly plucked eyebrows arched again, this time more in amazement than distaste.

‘You were …’

‘Oh yes, I was the madam of a brothel in Germania, and rather a good one too. I …’

Felicia smiled wanly at their new friend, waving a hand to silence her assistant.

‘I suspect there are better ways that we might have got to know each other than swapping such revelations within a few minutes of meeting each other. But, since we’re here, perhaps I ought to explain just who we are? Or did your … husband explain that already?’

Desidra shook her head.

‘There was no opportunity. He banged on our door, told me to take care of you all and then hurried off shouting something about gold. I barely had time to get to the fortress’s main gate before your cart arrived.’

Felicia smiled.

‘In which case this must all be a little disconcerting. Perhaps we might take a seat on these highly inviting beds? I’m willing to risk the chance that either one of us might pass out from the simple joy of touching a clean sheet!’

She eased the sleeping Appius down onto the nearest bed’s softly yielding surface while Annia sat down with a sigh of pleasure, then slumped back onto her back with her pregnant belly uppermost.

‘Any time spent not carting this little monster around is a minute well spent.’

Desidra conceded the point.

‘I have never carried a child myself, and the time when that is possible may have passed me by, but I can see that you carry a heavy burden. Now, if I am to understand what you have said, you — ’ she looked at Felicia with more than a hint of disbelief ‘- are a doctor? And you, madam, from your statements a moment ago, are a retired …’

She struggled for a polite way to continue the sentence, and Annia, her good temper returned with the bed’s soothing embrace, smiled serenely at the ceiling in response.

‘Prostitute, yes. Although the term we usually went under was “whore”. And, let me tell you, you’re looking at the best doctor and the best whore in the whole of this shitty, fucked-up country.’

Felicia waited in trepidation for Desidra’s response, raising an eyebrow as the older woman smiled back at Annia and replied with a hint of mischief in her voice.

‘Well you were clearly an industrious whore, my dear, to judge from your current condition!’

The Tungrian woman gaped for a moment then laughed uproariously, struggling into a sitting position.

‘You’re not quite as strait-laced as you might seem, are you?’

Desidra shrugged, the line of her jaw hardening as she raised her head defiantly.

‘I had a life before Artorius Castus plucked me from a slave market to take care of his material needs, taking pity on my emaciated frame and never for a moment seeing the woman within. My father and brothers were killed in the German Wars, and I was washed up on the empire’s border in a slave convoy, more dead than living, barely hanging on to my humanity through rape and degradation all the four months it took me to travel from my village to the marketplace. A woman doesn’t survive being enslaved in the middle of a frontier war without learning to deal with the harshest aspects of life, no matter how soft the clothes I wear now that Artorius and I have become man and woman.’ She looked about the room, shrugging at the bare plastered walls. ‘And yes, you are stuck with these somewhat disappointing surroundings, at least for the time being. Once Legatus Equitius has returned from his visit to Fortress Deva, I’m sure Artorius will ask him to take you into his residence, but until then it’ll be the five of us, a former slave, a former whore, the doctor and her infant son and … what do you call the child playing outside?’

Felicia smiled again, leaning back to look out of the room’s window to where Lupus was regaling a group of wide-eyed vicus children with a story from his adventures with the Tungrian cohort.

‘Lupus? Oh now, there’s a complex story for you, Domina, but if ever there was a child born to be raised to manhood by soldiers, Lupus is that boy. Every day he trains to kill with a German who cares for him as if he were the father the boy lost in the barbarian revolt, while he provides my husband with a replacement for the younger brother he lost to Rome’s murderers. And as for his grandfather …’

She frowned at Desidra’s sudden inattention to her words, realising that the mistress of the house’s face had suddenly turned to Annia, whose beatific expression at the bed’s comfort had abruptly vanished as she stared in horror at the wide, wet stain on the sheets beneath her.

The next day’s march north wound through a low mountain range, and the Tungrians hunched into their cloaks as curtains of misty rain advanced down the valley on a bitterly cold north wind. Trickles of water insinuated their way down necks and into socks, eventually soaking the soldiers through almost as thoroughly as a heavy deluge might have done. Wet, cold and exhausted from a third day marching at the double pace for much of the time, the cohort marched wearily across the bridge over the Wet River and found themselves facing the ruins of the fort that had for a time guarded the crossing.

‘Silus!’

The grizzled decurion rode up the column at Julius’s call, the riders of his squadron following in a long string, their progress punctuated by the barrage of insults and crude humour that was their customary accompaniment. Silus reined his horse in and jumped down to salute the first spear.

‘You want me to go and find you a marching camp?’

Julius nodded, glancing round at their grim surroundings and pointing at the shattered ruins of the Wet River fort on the hillside to their north like a set of broken teeth.

‘Well I’m not going anywhere near that. Not only will it be of absolutely no value defensively, but it’ll scare the living shit out of the weaker sisters among the men. Besides which, before we know it we’ll have Morban taking bets with the more easily led among us that the souls of dead soldiers are roaming the ruins and then paying someone to wander about groaning and rattling their mail once the sun’s down.’

The horsemen quickly located the site of an old marching camp, the once proud turf walls sunken and gapped by decades of neglect, but the Tungrians set to with the urgency of men keen to be done with labour for the day and soon had it patched up to the first spear’s satisfaction. Julius toured the four-foot-high enclosure in the day’s last fading light and nodded his satisfaction to his officers.

‘Very good. Construction teams dismissed, and we’ll have double guards tonight this far north, supposedly friendly territory or not. And if you want a little ray of sunshine for your men, you can tell them that today was the last day we’ll need to march quite that hard. Tomorrow morning we’ll be approaching the eastern end of the wall and I think a gentler pace might be a wise way to approach, given how jumpy we’re likely to find the occupying forces.’

Annia lay asleep on the wider of the guest room’s two beds, her new-born daughter dozing contentedly in the crook of her arm after her second feed of the evening. The room was lit by a pair of oil lamps either side of the bed, and in their pale golden light Felicia and Desidra stood and watched fondly as the baby’s tiny hands clenched and unclenched in her sleep.

‘Your friend may have a hard face for the world, but she melted quickly enough once that tiny life was placed in her arms.’

Felicia nodded at the whispered comment, recalling the moment she’d held Appius for the first time.

‘She wears the face that life thrust upon her when circumstances forced her to offer her body to an unending succession of men for whom she felt no emotion other than loathing. But when you scratch the surface of that hard mask you find all the same vulnerabilities and hopes that the rest of us entertain.’

Castus’s woman was silent for a moment, staring down at mother and child with an expression of longing.

‘I must confess myself more affected by the presence of this baby than I thought would be the case …’

Felicia nodded.

‘It’s a common reaction among the childless. Before I had my son I only had to see a child under five to desperately want to become a mother.’

‘And now?’

‘And now, Domina, whenever I see a baby I see years of dirty napkins to boil clean, food to mash and sleepless nights.’

The older woman looked up at her with a disbelieving smile.

‘I realise that the nature of your calling compels you to seek to lighten my mood, and I thank you for trying, Doctor, but we both know that you worship that little man just as much as you love his father. And doubtless I would love my child no less, were Artorius and I to succeed in conceiving.’

‘Your husband entertains hopes of a child?’

Desidra laughed softly.

‘Of course! What man doesn’t? He longs for a son to pass his blood down to future generations.’ Desidra looked down at the sleeping baby for another long moment. ‘Tell me, how will this one’s father react to the delivery of a little girl? If I am to believe Annia, he is a man with a fearsome reputation?’

Felicia nodded, drawing the older woman away.

‘And well deserved. He rescued her from her brothel and the owner sought to punish him by means of her humiliation and murder. When Julius brought her to safety he was painted from head to toe with the blood of the men he had caught raping her. Annia later told me that he hacked off one of her attackers’ manhood before leaving him to bleed to death with the ruined meat on the floor in front of him.’

Desidra’s face hardened with the image, her eyes narrowing at the prospect of such bloody revenge.

‘There is more than one man upon whom I would have wished exactly such a death, given the chance. But seriously, how will such a man react to a female child?’

Felicia shrugged.

‘I cannot tell you, but be assured, that little girl lies in the arms of a woman more than capable of putting Julius in his place should he react badly. In that partnership I’d have to say that she wields the longer sword.’

Rising from their damp blankets in the next day’s dawn, a cloudless sky having coated every surface with frost, the soldiers were for once grateful to receive the order to march. The cohort headed north-west in windless conditions towards Broad Land fort, the point where the road north would meet the Antonine Wall, trails of steam rising from each man’s gear as it dried under the heat of his exertions, and conversation was limited to the occasional collective groan of complaint as individual soldiers broke wind.

‘You don’t fancy a ride today then, eh Centurion? The tribune has asked me to scout as far north as Broad Land, and I have permission for you to accompany us if you’re game.’

Marcus looked up at Silus as the grinning decurion ranged up alongside him with a pair of riders following behind, looking down at the labouring troops with a sardonic smile.

‘No thank you, Silus. The first spear did mention the possibility at this morning’s officers’ meeting, but you know how it is for us centurions. We share our men’s hardships with the same pleasure that we take in their victories. And besides, where else would I hear the broad range of marching songs that we use to pass the time?’

The men in the century’s front rank behind him took his words as a cue for song, dragging in lungfuls of air before roaring out the first verse of a ditty they had been working on for several days.

Silus pursed his lips approvingly.

‘It has a certain poetic ring to it. And not a word about the cavalry either, which makes for a pleasant ch-.’

His words were drowned out by the next verse.

Silus looked down at his friend with a wry smile.

‘We’re never going to live down that battle on the frozen lake, are we? Come on my lads, let’s leave these mules to fester in their own stink, shall we?’

The horsemen cantered away up the column’s line, pursued by the words of the song’s next verse.

‘Our cavalry ride fine horses,

Of white and brown and black,

But each noble horse is deformed of course …’

The marching men took a collective gulp of breath to bellow out the last line at the horsemen’s receding backs.

‘By the arsehole on its back!’

The riders returned two hours later with news for the tribune.

‘The wall’s still manned sir, although the centurion I spoke to at Broad Land wasn’t all that helpful. Seems to me like they’re all just waiting for the command to head south as fast as their feet will carry them. When I asked him the best way to get a party of men into Venicone territory he pointed to the west and told me I needed the next fort along, Lazy Hill.’

The impression was reinforced by the state of affairs that they found when the cohort marched up to the Lazy Hill fort late that afternoon and were directed into a waiting marching camp. Julius left his centurions supervising its renovation to the standard he expected and took Marcus and Dubnus off for a good look around. His report back to Scaurus was delivered in a tone bordering on disbelief.

‘It’s not good, Tribune, not good at all. The fort’s been rebuilt neatly enough, but the wall’s in a bit of a state. It happens with turf structures if they’re not maintained, but it’s never a good sign when there are trees growing out of the rampart. They’ve got guards posted, but none of them seem to have any apparent interest in doing anything other than stand their watches and get off duty. There’s enough rusty armour and dirty tunics here to have made dear old Uncle Sextus shit a cow if he’d lived to witness the state of them, may Cocidius watch over him, and none of the weapons that were on display looked like they had much of an edge. All of which tells me that the man at the top of this particular cohort has stopped caring what state his men are in. I had a chat with the duty centurion, since he seemed a bit more aggressively minded than the rest of them, and he confirmed it for me. The senior centurion has orders to do absolutely nothing to provoke the locals, orders which he seems to have embraced happily enough. The rest of the officers are variously bored, frustrated, and just pissed off with life, and their men are in a state of perpetual fear that the Venicones are going to come over the wall for them. I can understand it well enough, these boys are survivors of the battle of Lost Eagle, so they’ve been fighting without much respite for two years, but honestly, Tribune, this place is a disaster ready to happen.’

Scaurus nodded at his first spear’s description of the fort’s garrison, shrugging resignedly.

‘Nothing we can do or say is going to change the state of things here though, is it? The army’s grip on the north has been overextended, and these men know only too well what that might mean if the tribesmen decide to come knocking on their door. I think the best thing we can do is ignore them and get on with doing the job we came for. And for what it’s worth, I tend to share their viewpoint in one thing at least — the sooner we’re back on this side of the wall and heading south the better. Let’s go and see what the senior man can tell us about the state of affairs on the other side, shall we?’

They found the cohort’s first spear in the fort’s headquarters, and while his salute for the newly arrived tribune was smart enough, Marcus could sense just how demoralised he was beneath the surface. His chin was neither bearded nor clean-shaven, and there was a whiff of alcohol in the air that had Julius’s nostrils flaring as he sniffed ostentatiously. The legion officer smiled sheepishly, offering them seats with a wave of his hand and reaching out to grasp the back of the chair he intended to sit down in once the senior officer was seated.

‘When the guards reported you coming up the road, I dared to hope that you might be carrying orders to head south or that you might be our replacement.’

Scaurus laughed curtly, ignoring the seating and dropping his written orders onto the room’s large wooden table.

‘I’m afraid not, First Spear. We’ve been sent here by your Tribune Sorex to mount a raid into enemy territory. Our objective is a Venicone fortress that is known as “The Fang”, I believe …’

The centurion gaped, shaking his head vigorously.

‘But you can’t-’ He saw the look on the tribune’s face and regained his composure. ‘By which I mean to say that the locals are quiet at the moment and that’s just the way we’d like them to stay. They’ve enough warriors to knock over any of the forts along the wall, and you can be sure that none of the other garrisons would come to our rescue, given the general order to hold position. Not to mention the fact that the local madmen would still have us outnumbered even if half a dozen forts tipped out their men and came to the rescue.’

Julius stepped forward with his face set hard, his notoriously thin patience evidently exhausted.

‘In which case you’d better set your men to making sure that your walls are fit to repel them and your spears are nice and sharp, because we’re under orders from the commanding officer of your legion to go and rescue your eagle from those tattooed lunatics. Once the order’s given for you lot to pull back to the Emperor Hadrian’s wall the chance will be lost for ever. The days of glorious campaigns into the north are gone, and your standard will vanish into the deepest forests never to be seen again other than by the tribal priests who’ll be wiping their arses on it as part of their ritual.’

He paused for a moment to allow the thought to sink in.

‘Worse still, Sixth “Victorious” — ’ he snorted in dark amusement ‘- will more than likely be removed from the records with the notation “Eagle Lost — Disbanded”. It’ll be a sad end for a proud legion, and one that’ll most likely leave you holding the shitty end of the stick. No one’s going to do any favours for a centurion from one of the four cohorts that survived the massacre at Lost Eagle, are they? Once the emperor loses his patience with your failure to restore your honour by getting the bird back that’ll be it for you. The cohorts that were sent to reinforce you from Germania will be detached, since they had nothing to do with the original foul up, and the rest of you will be split up to fill the ranks of the other Britannia legions while the men in the shiny armour get on with forming a new legion with an unspoiled name. I can see it now …’ He paused and stroked his chin reflectively. ‘Yes, First Imperial Legion Commodus, that’ll be it. A legion that can be trusted to look after their eagle, unsullied by the presence of so much as a single man who participated in the loss of the last one. The new eagle’s probably already been made and shipped to the province ready for the order to be given for you lot to be disbanded.’ He paused again, fixing the first spear with an acerbic glare. ‘So, all in all, if I were you I’d be trying to work out just what I could do to help us recover the bloody thing. Have you got a map of the area?’

The legion officer pulled a curtain away from a large map with a sick expression, Julius’s words clearly sinking in as he pointed with his vine stick.

‘That’s us, here at Lazy Hill. You can see the line of the wall to the east and west, and then here are the High Mountains running away to the north-east.’ He pointed to a black cross painted onto the map. ‘There’s The Fang.’ He turned to Scaurus with a hint of desperation in his voice. ‘But Tribune, as Mithras is my witness, if you try to break into that place you’ll not be seen again. We’ve only one man that ever got over those walls and even he doesn’t quite understand how he managed to escape.’

Scaurus’s eyes narrowed.

‘One of your men has been inside The Fang?’

The centurion smiled tightly.

‘He’s a bit of a celebrity, Tribune, but to be honest with you I’d say his door’s flapping on its hinges, so I’d advise that you take anything he tells you with a large pinch of salt. He was captured by the Venicones about three months ago, the only man left alive out of a forage party of thirty men we sent out in the days before we were ordered not to allow any detachment of less than three centuries north of the wall. We found them slaughtered, with their heads and pricks cut off for trophies, and given that several men’s corpses were nowhere to be found we reckoned they’d been taken to be stretched out on a stone altar and sacrificed to the Venicones’ gods. The general assumption was that the ink monkeys would torture the shit out of the captured lads for long enough to drive them out of their minds before killing them, and certainly nobody ever expected to see any of them in one piece again. Verus pitched up three weeks ago, stark naked apart from a fur cloak he’d taken from some woman he’d killed and covered in mud, babbling about having been on the run for eight days. And he weighed thirty pounds less than when he was taken.’

The tribune nodded decisively.

‘I’ll see him now. Alone.’ The legion man nodded, turning for the door. ‘Oh, and centurion, this man’s instability …’

‘Yes, Tribune?’

‘How does it manifest itself? Does he perhaps take drink in the morning, to soothe his nerves?’

The centurion’s face crumpled as if he’d been punched, and his eyes closed as he answered, his voice little more than a whisper.

‘No …’

‘That’s something to be said in his favour then, isn’t it?’ Scaurus stepped close to the abashed centurion, lowering his voice so as not to be heard outside of the office. ‘I suggest you get a grip of yourself man, and look to your command before it falls to pieces around you. You know how it goes — you can lead, you can follow, or you can just get out of the way. If you don’t think you’ve got it in you to provide your men with leadership, then I suggest you nominate your successor as First Spear and make way for someone that can.’

After a long silence the other man opened his eyes again, straightening his back.

‘Thank you, sir. For not just demoting me, I mean. I’ll get things straightened up round here soon enough …’

Scaurus nodded and turned away to look at the map.

‘Demoting you might be a little beyond my authority, First Spear, even if I were tempted to do so. And besides, my men and I are believers in more direct ways of dealing with officers who fail to meet the required standards. If you let me down in this then I promise you that you’ll have nowhere to hide from whichever of us survives this apparent suicide mission.’

After a few minutes’ wait the door opened and a single soldier stepped into the room, snapping to attention and saluting smartly, staring at the wall behind Scaurus. His bare forearms were covered in the marks of what appeared to be recently healed burns, and his eyes were bright and hard beneath a full head of white hair.

‘Soldier Verus reporting as ordered, Tribune!’

The Tungrians took a moment to assess his state, and Marcus realised that he was looking at the best turned out legionary he’d seen since their arrival. Scaurus stepped forward extending an arm to invite the soldier into the room.

‘Take a seat please, Verus. Be seated gentlemen, let’s not stand on ceremony.’ He waited until everyone was seated before continuing. ‘Without intending any disrespect to your comrades, legionary, you are by some distance the most well presented of the legion’s soldiers I’ve seen all day. Why would that be, do you think?’

Verus smiled darkly.

‘That’s an easy one to answer, Tribune. I’ve seen the Venicones at close quarters, and I expect to see them again before very long. When they come over that wall there’s at least one man who’ll be ready to meet his gods with clean armour, and with blood on his spear blade.’

‘I see. Your first spear tells me that you’ve recently achieved the notable status of being captured by the locals and then managing to escape?’

The soldier nodded, his face perfectly composed.

‘That’s correct, Tribune. I spent fifty-seven days as their prisoner before the gods saw fit to show me a way to escape from their fortress.’

Scaurus leaned forward, intent on the legionary’s answers.

‘Let’s make sure that I have this right. You were taken to the fortress that they call The Fang?’ Verus nodded again. ‘Your first spear told us that he believed you had been taken captive for the purpose of sacrifice, rather than being killed on the spot.’

‘So did I, sir. And I still believe that the Venicones intended to offer my blood to their gods, once they had achieved their initial purpose of breaking my spirit.’

The words hung heavily in the air, and Julius leaned forward to speak.

‘They tortured you?’

Verus returned his stare with an unflinching gaze.

‘Yes, First Spear. They tortured me for all of these fifty-seven days. They left me locked in a cell too small for a man to lie down in for much of the time, crouching in my own shit and sleeping so little that I lost all track of time. They used hot irons to burn my skin in their ritual patterns, inflicting enough pain on me to keep me in constant agony, but never enough to kill me. And they abused me in other ways, degraded me in a manner intended to reduce me from a man to a slave, lower than a slave …’

‘But you held firm?’

The soldier stared back at Scaurus with a look of triumph.

‘I held firm. Yes, I screamed in agony, I howled in my degradation and I cried like a baby at the shame of their using me like a woman, but I never lost my hold of who I was.’

‘And who are you, legionary?’

Scaurus’s question was gentle, but the reaction to it was anything but. Leaping to his feet and sending the chair flying, the soldier sprang to attention and roared out his answer.

‘Legionary Verus, Fifth Century, Eighth Cohort, Sixth Imperial Legion Victorious, Tribune sir!’

Once Verus had retrieved his seat and sat down again at the tribune’s gentle direction, Julius had asked him the question that Marcus had been burning to hear answered.

‘So, soldier, tell me, just how did you escape from The Fang?’

The legionary looked up at the ceiling for a moment, smiling dreamily at the memory.

‘My torturers became careless. They took my silence, and my downcast appearance for those of a man they had broken, as I gathered they had done with other men before me. They became ill disciplined with their tools, and there inevitably came a fleeting moment when one of them allowed a small knife to fall to the floor without realising the slip. I put my foot over the weapon, and when he turned away to tend to the fire in which his branding iron was heating up I stooped without making a noise and picked it up, tucking it between my buttocks beneath the filthy leggings I was wearing. When they returned me to my cell I knew that I only had a matter of hours in which to act, before the blade’s absence was noted. To understand what I did next, you have to understand the fortress’s construction.’

He raised an eyebrow at Julius, who nodded and gestured for him to continue.

‘The Fang is built on a hilltop. It looks to me to be the sort of place that has been fortified since the beginning of time, and the fortress’s walls are built on top of an old earth rampart. They put up a ten-foot tall wall of stone based on a wooden framework and set with mortar, and over the years the wood and mortar have rotted and aged to leave it quite unstable. I had already realised that the mortar holding a large stone in my cell’s outer wall was crumbling, and I had guessed that it was an external wall from the way it became so cold at night. And besides, I was uncertain as to how much more of their torture I could tolerate, or how long it might be before they would tire of my resistance and sacrifice me to their gods without waiting any longer for me to surrender my sanity to their degradation. The priest who had branded me that day had seemed particularly satisfied with his work, standing back to look at me from various angles in the manner of a man surveying a completed piece of craftsmanship. He seemed proud of his work, and I assumed that with the ritual pattern complete I might be murdered at any time.’

‘You dug your way out of the cell?’

Verus nodded in response to Marcus’s question.

‘As I said, the mortar was rotten. My job with the legion is that of builder, so I know just how far gone mortar can be without the rot being obvious. This stuff was like powder, and the knife’s blade was the perfect tool for raking it out. I had the stone more or less free of those around it by the middle of the night, and then the small size of my cell became an advantage. I put my back against the inner wall and my feet to the wall then bore down on it with all the strength I had left. I managed to push the rock from its place, leaving a gaping hole out into the darkness. Of course I had no idea whether I would emerge over a sheer drop, but a quick death would have been preferable to the way I expected the priests would kill me, and so I wriggled through the hole and found myself tumbling out onto the grass slope at the fortress’s foot.’ He looked at the men around him, his face shining with sincerity. ‘Fortuna was with me that night. I slithered away down the hill as quietly as I could, and given the absence of any moon I must have been invisible to the men on the walls. I was almost at the slope’s foot before they realised that my cell was empty, but the noise they kicked up when they did so was enough to make my blood run cold.’

‘They pursued you?’

Verus nodded at the question, shivering despite the room’s warmth.

‘Yes, they sent out a hunting party of the tribe’s young women, the bloodthirsty bitches they call their Vixens. They came down the hill behind me with their horns blaring at the stars, and their dogs bayed and howled once they caught my scent, but they were too late. The land to either side of the Dirty River is a swamp, you see, covered with a thick clinging moss which conceals deep pools of watery, rotting vegetation. I crawled into the morass and submerged myself in one of these pits, holding onto a trailing bush to avoid being pulled down and drowned. I stripped off my leggings and washed away the filthy smell of my cell and became part of the landscape, making it impossible for the dogs to find my scent.’

Marcus frowned.

‘The first spear told us that it took you eight days to return here, and yet it can’t be more than a dozen miles.’

Verus nodded with tightly pursed lips.

The dogs weren’t able to find me, but those evil bitches hunted for me day and night, their wild cries and curses echoing across the marsh. They never once gave up on the chase, sleeping out in the open and slinking around in the mists, and they had sufficient cunning that I was nearly taken by them more than once …’

He shivered, lowering his head into his hands with an expression of such dread that Scaurus stood with an apologetic expression, patting the emotionally exhausted soldier on the back.

‘I’m sorry, Legionary Verus. We’ve kept you talking for long enough.’

When the soldier had left the room he turned to Julius and Marcus with an enquiring expression.

‘So, First Spear, what do you think?’

Julius shook his head.

‘He’s like an overwound bolt thrower. The way he jumped up like a madman when you asked who he was is a clear enough giveaway. And when you overstress a bolt thrower it’s a toss-up as to who’ll get hurt worst when you finally loose the missile, the enemy or the men around it.’

The tribune nodded sagely at his first spear’s opinion.

‘I completely agree. On the other hand, if he really spent eight days avoiding capture, and presumably living off the land wearing no more than a coat of mud, he must know the ground between here and The Fang quite intimately.’

Julius pursed his lips and nodded reluctantly.

‘Like I said, it’s a toss-up.’

Scaurus agreed.

‘I don’t see how we can ignore the opportunity he presents. Whoever’s going to lead the raiding party will just have to keep a good close eye on him, and act quickly if he looks like doing something rash.’

‘Act quickly? Are you proposing that we take the poor bastard back out into Venicone territory and then put iron through his spine if it looks like he’s about to throw a wobbler as a result?’

Scaurus turned an imperturbable glance on his senior centurion, raising an eyebrow in silent question. Julius returned the gaze for a moment before shaking his head and turning away.

‘And they call me the nastiest bastard in this cohort?’

Evening came to the Yew Grove fortress in its usual ordered manner, the distant sounds of shouted commands and stamping boots as the guard was changed at the nearby gate reaching the ear of the sleeping baby, making the infant stir in her sleep. Annia woke, her maternal instincts alerting her to the child’s minute movements, but Felicia shook her head from the chair facing her, and the still weary new mother slumped back onto her bed and was asleep again. A smile of contentment touched her friend’s face at the sight of mother and baby dozing together, and she closed her own eyes to luxuriate in a rare moment of peace, allowing a long, slow breath to escape from between her lips.

A knock at the door snapped the doctor out of her reverie, and the sound of voices in the house’s hall furrowed her brow as she recognised the sound of Tribune Sorex’s voice. He appeared in the room’s doorway a moment later with Desidra behind him, a nervous smile on the older woman’s face clearly signalling her unease at the senior officer’s presence. When Sorex spoke his voice was lowered to a whisper, pitched low enough not to awaken the sleepers.

‘I heard that your assistant had been delivered of her child, and so I thought I ought to come and pay my respects to the new arrival. Here, a gift for the little one.’

He handed Felicia a gold aureus, and she nodded her thanks.

‘I’m sure that Annia will be most touched, Tribune. Allow me to thank you on her behalf when she wakes.’

Sorex bowed his head graciously.

‘Indeed, madam, but there is a way that you can render me some small service by way of thanks, if I might elicit your professional opinion on a personal matter?’

‘With pleasure, Tribune. Perhaps in another room?’

They moved into the hall and Felicia looked to Desidra, waiting for the mistress of the house to indicate which room they should use, but Sorex simply pointed to the front door, turning to the prefect’s woman with a knowing smile.

‘This is a personal matter which on this occasion does not require your presence, Domina. You will favour me with your absence, if you know what’s good for you and your husband?’

To Felicia’s consternation the older woman shot her an apologetic glance and scuttled for the door, leaving the two of them alone. Taking her hand, Sorex bent to whisper in her face.

‘Desidra does know what’s good for her, you see. She knows that if it weren’t for your presence I’d have her legs spread wide on the bed she shares with Prefect Castus at this very moment, since she’s long since realised that allowing me to fuck her every now and then is infinitely preferable to the indignity I could heap on the prefect without very much effort. But now you’re here, Doctor, and you’re an altogether more enticing prospect for a little enforced enjoyment, aren’t you?’

Felicia’s eyes widened at the revelation, and she moved to back away from his leering grin, but the grip on her hand tightened, and she started as he put a hand under her stola’s hem, his questing fingers cupping her crotch.

‘So here’s what we are and are not going to do, my dear. You are going to submit to my attentions in an accommodating manner, make encouraging noises and generally do whatever it takes to give me the impression that you’re enjoying it just as much as I undoubtedly will. You are not going to call out for help, not that it’ll bring anyone other than a woman who gave birth only a day ago and whom I will have no compunction in knocking senseless given her clearly expressed attitude towards me. And in return for your complicity your friend and her child will be safe from the dangers that so often frequent places like this. After all, there are hundreds of soldiers cooped up in that fortress with nothing better than a selection of saggy, over-used whores to service their needs. It wouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, least of all me, if half a dozen of them were to abduct your friend and she was never be seen again. Or at least not alive. I can make that happen with a few words in the right ear you know, I have a tame centurion who does whatever I tell him to, not that he takes much encouragement. So, do we have a deal, Doctor?’

He tugged at the knot in her loincloth, pulling the garment loose and tossing it aside, pushing her back against the wall and probing vigorously between her legs.

‘There we are! A little dry, but a few minutes of vigorous fingering will soon change that.’

Felicia grimaced at the intrusion, closing her eyes to block out the sight of his triumphant grin.

‘You know that my husband will kill you for this, when he returns from wherever it is that you’ve sent him.’

Sorex lifted the hand that was massaging her vagina and slapped her face.

‘Eyes open, madam. Please don’t think that I’m going to be satisfied with you scowling and crying your way through this. I want to see the signs that you’re loving every little bit of it, or I won’t be able to keep my side of the bargain and leave your friend unharmed. As for your husband’s return, let’s just say that I’ve sent his cohort into the jaws of the nastiest, most dangerous tribe on this entire disgusting island. The centurion and his cohort are going to vanish without trace in the bogs and mists north of the Antonine Wall, and you will be left here as a widow. I foresee a long and entertaining relationship between the two of us, at least until I am recalled to Rome to enjoy the fruits of having delivered the right results to the right people. But enough about me, I think it’s time to introduce the star of this evening’s performance.’

Smiling happily in the face of her horror he raised his tunic to reveal a bobbing erection.

‘Ah yes, here he is, and looking rather keen as well, if I might say so. Doubtless he’s keen to be hidden deep inside you, my dear, and I see no reason not to indulge his every whim, do you? I think you’re about as ready for him as you’re ever going to be …’

Turning Felicia to face the wall he gripped her hair and bent her forward, pushing her face up against the painted plaster and spreading her legs wide with his feet.

‘Stop it!’

Sorex turned his head to find the child Lupus standing in the door of the house’s dining room where he had been playing on his own, his half-sized sword drawn and a pale expression of fury on his face. Sorex tightened his grip on Felicia’s hair and turned her to face the boy. A draught of cold air raised gooseflesh on her buttocks.

‘Tell him to leave us, woman, or I’ll be forced to take that toy from him and make him eat it!’

‘Will you now, Tribune?’

Sorex released Felicia, turning with a look of fury to find a tall, dark-skinned man standing in the house’s open doorway, Desidra peering round him with a look of terror on her face. After a moment’s silence the newcomer stepped forward into the room, unpinning his cloak and dropping it onto a chair.

‘I believe it’s customary, Fulvius Sorex, for a tribune to stand to attention in the presence of a senior officer. I’ll remind you that while I am no longer in command of this legion, nothing in my orders to relinquish operational control of the Sixth to you made any mention of demotion. A legatus I was and a legatus I remain, to be accorded every right, privilege and every little bit of respect I’ve earned in ten years of soldiering for the empire. And that’s before we get onto the fact that I have four very ugly and easily provoked soldiers of my personal bodyguard who I have little doubt would take the greatest pleasure in subduing you, were I to give them the command to do so.’

He gave the tribune’s exposed and wilting erection a wry glance.

‘And that doesn’t count as standing to attention, Tribune, although I see you’re having trouble on that front too …’ He strolled across to Felicia, who had straightened up and rearranged her clothing. ‘Doctor, it’s a pleasure to meet you again although we might both have preferred the circumstances to be a little more auspicious. I do hope that your dignity isn’t too bruised, it looked to me as if this man was struggling to make much of an impression upon you.’

She nodded, looking at the child who was still standing in the dining room’s doorway with his sword raised and a look of murderous anger on his young face.

‘Ah, if I remember rightly, this young man’s name is Lupus?’ The boy nodded, his gaze fixed on Sorex. The legatus walked slowly across the hall and squatted in front of him, his face a bare six inches from the short sword’s point. ‘I am Legatus Septimius Equitius, young man, and I have known your guardian Centurion Corvus for long enough to have heard your story from his lips. I recall him telling me that you train in swordsmanship with your tribune’s German servant most days?’ Lupus nodded again, his lips pulled back to show his teeth and his eyes still locked on the tribune. ‘And so if you decided to punish this man for hurting my friend the doctor, you could probably hurt him very badly indeed.’ He reached out slowly with a gentle smile and pushed the sword’s point aside. ‘Sheathe your sword, young soldier, the time for you to use it in anger is not yet upon you, and there are other ways to achieve the same result, even if they are less immediately satisfying.’

He stood and turned back to Sorex, shaking his head in disgust.

‘It was fortunate for everyone that I happened to spot Prefect Castus’s woman lurking in the entrance of her own house as I rode up to the fortress gates. She was initially reluctant to explain why she might be shut out of her own house, but I thank the Lightbringer that I persisted with my questions for long enough to discover that you intended raping the doctor here. While she has not spoken of it, something is telling me that the centurion’s wife is unlikely to have been your first victim. You can thank the gods that I came along in time to save you from the child.’

Sorex scoffed, his confidence starting to reassert itself.

‘The child? I’d have broken his neck like an unwanted puppy.’

Equitius raised an eyebrow.

‘Perhaps you would. Or perhaps he’d have opened an artery with that deceptively harmless-looking sword. It has the look to me of a weapon whose acquaintanceship with the polishing stone is a very close one. And now, I’d suggest that you make your exit, and resolve not to trouble any of these ladies again for fear that you have a good deal more than a vengeful child to worry about. I suspect that Prefect Castus, whilst being at the end of his military career, would take the most grave and fatal objection were he to discover your forced relations with his woman. Get out.’

Sorex turned on his heel and left with a scowl of fury at the legatus.

‘And there goes a man who will now stop at nothing to see me either dead or disgraced. Not that he’ll have too long to wait for the latter, I suspect, once the new legatus arrives with whatever orders he has from Rome for me.’ A movement at the bedroom’s door caught his eye. ‘Ah, madam, you must be the proud mother that Desidra here was telling me about.’

Annia stared about her at the crowded hallway with a look of puzzlement.

‘I seem to have missed something. Who’s the stranger, and why has Lupus got a face on him like the one my man wears when he’s about to tear someone’s head off?’