The Leopard Sword

6

‘We either get them across the river or they’ll die here, it’s as simple as that!’

First Spear Sergius squinted unhappily through the afternoon’s premature gloom at the Mosa’s black water. He looked to his tribune for orders, but Belletor was looking up into the falling snow with the face of a man overtaken by events.

‘But if we get our tents up? Surely that’ll be enough protection.’

Frontinius shook his head impatiently, pointing back at the submerged bridge.

‘I didn’t come back across that bloody thing at the risk of drowning myself to chat about this for a while, Sergius! Can you hear that?’

He put a cupped hand to his ear and tipped his head in question. Sergius nodded, his eyes thoughtful.

‘Axes’

‘Yes, axes! My pioneer centuries are across the river and chopping down trees as fast as they can. Look around you, man! On this side of the river there’s nothing, no shelter, nothing to burn other than a few bushes and saplings; everything else has been torn out and then grazed flat. Over there we’ve got their camp, which is surrounded by trees, which means fuel for fires and some measure of shelter from this wind.’

Sergius frowned in disbelief, waving a hand at the snow falling around them.

‘How will you get anything to burn in this?’

Frontinius raised both hands in imprecation.

‘Fucking Cocidius, help me! Tribune?’

Scaurus glanced at Belletor, and then stepped forward, his black cloak made grey by the snow sticking to it. His voice was edged with urgency.

‘We’ve learned a few things in the last year, First Spear Sergius. Please trust me when I tell you that lighting up these trees isn’t going to be a problem, not once we’ve got a flame. There’ll be enough heat and light for every one of us even before we’re all across the river, but we have to get the men moving now, or we’ll risk losing hundreds of them to the cold if this blizzard keeps up.’

Sergius looked to his own tribune again, but found the man’s face a study in prevarication. He came to a decision, nodding his agreement with his colleague’s proposal.

‘Very well. I’ve got enough rope in our carts to put a line across the river for the men to hold onto.’

Frontinius clapped him on the shoulder.

‘Good man, that’s the spirit. With a bit of luck we’ll get this lot across the river and into the warmth before any of them die of the cold. Julius?’

His deputy stepped forward, his face turned away from the blizzard’s force.

‘First Spear?’

‘You’re in charge on this side. Get the legion troops across first, then the Second Cohort, then what’s left of the First. You’d better tell them to keep an eye on the mules too, and to butcher any that don’t survive the cold before they go stiff. That way at least we’ll have something to cook once we get the fires lit. You get this lot moving, and I’ll go back over there and make sure the men that are already across are still in one piece.’

He eyed the river’s black water for a moment before stepping back onto the bridge’s slippery submerged stone, then turned back to shout one last instruction.

‘Martos! I’ll have you and your warriors across the river, if you please! Bring that jar with you, and in the name of whatever god it is you pray to, don’t drop the bloody thing in the river or we’re all as good as dead!’

‘Blindfold him, Grumo. And make sure he’s not going to offer any more resistance.’

Having surrendered his helmet to one of the spearmen, Marcus stood in silence while a huge man dressed in brown walked out from behind the hedge of bandit spears and approached him with a hard look in his eyes. Even the knowledge that the blow was coming did little to help him ride its power, and he reeled back several paces at the force of the giant’s punch. The bandit’s massive fist had smashed into his temple in a blow calculated to addle his wits, and the Roman stood helplessly with his hands on his knees and watched through pain-slitted eyes as his assailant flourished a blindfold before tying it roughly over his eyes. Another man stripped away his weapons with swift, deft movements before gripping his arm and pulling him out of his slumped position, putting the ice-cold point of a blade up the sleeve of Marcus’s mail to prick at the soft skin of his armpit, only a single swift thrust from killing him. The weapon’s wielder jabbed his knife into the Roman’s defenceless flesh, sending him an unspoken warning that left a runnel of blood oozing into the tunic beneath his armour.

‘Keep still, you fucker, or I’ll jam this in to the hilt.’

He guessed it was the archer whose life he’d spared, doubtless still raging over both his easy defeat and the death of his comrades.

The flat, distorted voice spoke again from behind him, its tone peremptory.

‘Easy, man; he’s not going to offer us any resistance. And make sure his weapons don’t vanish on the way back to camp. I’ll not be party to theft from a guest.’

The knifeman snorted amusement.

‘A guest, is he? Him that’s already killed three of my mates? Those swords are worth a fortune, and I don’t see-’

The faint scraping of a blade on the throat of its scabbard silenced the argument in an instant.

‘You know my rule. Once this blade has been drawn it must taste blood, or its spirit will be offended to have been woken to no good purpose. I can still drop it back into the scabbard, but any further discussion of this subject will require me to be sure that I am in control here, and not you. Choose.’

The blindfold was secured in place, and Marcus felt the big man step smartly away, probably getting himself out of the way of any sword play. The tightly knotted cloth was aggravating the ache in his head, but he knew better than to comment into the tense atmosphere, and had to be content with standing rock still in the blizzard’s freezing blast while the silence stretched out. At length the knifeman stepped away from him, and Marcus braced himself to dive for the ground if he heard the masked man’s blade whisper free of its scabbard. The distorted voice spoke again, its tone unchanged from the conversational manner in which, not a moment before, he had offered his man the choice between backing down and fighting.

‘Very wise. You would have been even wiser not to argue with me in the first place, but wisdom isn’t granted to all men in equal measure, is it?’ There was an instant’s pause, and then, in the very second when Marcus thought that the moment for violence had passed, he heard the dreadful rasp of a sword being drawn. Instinctively shrinking away from the archer, he heard a flurry of movement, followed by a sudden grunting gasp. The Roman heard his would-be killer’s slow exhalation of breath harden to a bubbling croak as he fell to the ground with a soft thump. Obduro spoke again into the hush that followed, his voice raised to a harsh shout.

‘Nobody questions my judgement without paying the going price for that brief moment of pleasure, a price that only I can decide! Nobody! Now, does anybody else want to ask the same question, or might we head for the fortress and get out from under Arduenna’s divine intervention?’ A moment’s silence spun out, with only the faint sound of snowflakes hitting the men’s helmets to break the quiet. ‘No? Very well, let’s be away from here. You can leave him to lie where he fell, and the animals can have his corpse as an offering to the goddess. Get his cloak around the prisoner and let’s get moving. Storm or no storm, his comrades are still searching for him, and I’d rather not risk them finding us. Let’s move! ’

A heavy weight settled on Marcus’s shoulders, the stink of wet cloak wool a momentary and comforting reminder of his men, and then a hand gripped his arm tightly, pulling him in the direction of their travel with a steady but irresistible strength. Obduro’s unearthly voice spoke quietly, close to his ear.

‘Well, I couldn’t let him live, now could I, Centurion? You of all people will understand the confidence trick that is leadership, the art of convincing those who follow you that you are a man to be feared. I lead these men as you might command a pack of dangerous dogs: I throw them scraps to keep them quiet, and I punish with a fist of iron any of them who decide to challenge me.’ Marcus nodded his understanding, and the bandit leader spoke again, guiding him to the left with a gentle pull of his arm. ‘Let’s not have you walking into a tree, eh? I want you conscious to witness what I have decided to reveal to you. You are to be privileged, Centurion; you are to see a part of Arduenna that no man not already pledged to our cause has ever seen without dying in agony as a sacrifice to the goddess. Today is clearly your lucky day.’

Frontinius found the Tenth Century’s centurion standing in the middle of the bandit camp, the freshly cleared ground beyond its edge studded with the stumps of felled trees. With a rending tear of splintering wood another tree on the clearing’s edge arced into the open space, and two tent parties of the bearded pioneers fell on it in a flurry of axes, working swiftly to trim off the branches, which in turn were dragged away by waiting soldiers from the other Tungrian centuries already across the river. The remaining axemen set about the long trunk with practised strokes, hacking the sixty-foot log into sections short enough to be grappled by a team of soldiers and carried away to the growing pile of wood in the clearing’s centre, while other men laid the resin laden branches as the foundations for more fires.

‘Your boys are making good progress, Titus. I’ll soon have more labour across the bridge than you’ll be able to supply with work.’

The huge centurion nodded, casting an experienced eye around the clearing.

‘There’s space for three, maybe four fires. Enough to keep us all alive until this snow stops falling.’ He pointed to the first pile of wood. ‘This is tall enough to burn for hours. Leave me to start building the next fire, and you get that one alight.’

The first spear nodded and turned away, calling out into the clearing’s frenzied activity.

‘ Martos! ’

The barbarian prince stepped out of the pack of labouring soldiers, an earthenware jar tucked under one arm, while on either side of him a pair of his warriors fended off any man who ventured too close.

‘First Spear. Has the time come for your fire miracle?’

Frontinius nodded.

‘It has.’ Martos made to put the jar at Frontinius’s feet, but the first spear raised a hand to stop him. ‘No, hold it a little longer, if you will. It’s harmless enough sealed up in that container, and I need fire ready to use before I can release it to work its magic.’

Martos grunted, flicking snow from his long hair and turning to his men.

‘“Fire”, he says, as if the lighting of a fire in a snow storm were the easiest thing in all the world. Aerth! We need a flame!’

One of his warriors came forward from the group gathered about their leader, an older man with a deeply lined face. At his side a younger man carried a bundle of some kind wrapped up in his cloak. Aerth fished in a belt pouch, waving several more of Martos’s warriors forward with a grumbling, gravel-throated command in his own language.

‘Make the shelter.’

Four men knelt together in a huddle, three of them placing their shields to form a small curved wall against the wind, the fourth placing his board over the others to complete the enclosure. Snow no longer fell inside the tiny space and the blizzard’s wind was no more than a swirl of air. Aerth now knelt on the tiny patch of ground and bent his head, growling another command.

‘Kindling.’

The young warrior knelt beside him, opening his bundled cloak and spilling an armful of twigs and dead bracken into the shields’ protection. The barbarian tested the kindling with his fingers, shaking his head at the results.

‘Still damp.’ He reached into his bag and pulled out a piece of rough wool, the untreated woven fibres thick with the natural waxy grease that soldiers treasured as waterproofing. Frontinius smiled darkly at Martos, ignoring the snow whipping past his face.

‘Your man seems to know his subject. That’s from one of our cloaks, I presume?’

The Votadini leader nodded wryly, his one eye narrowing in a smile.

‘You know how it is, First Spear. A man must take his opportunities to gather the materials required for his expertise wherever he can. And your soldier will not have missed such a small piece of his garment.’

Aerth stared up at the two men for a moment and then turned back to his task, his face a mask of concentration. Using a small knife he shredded the oil-encrusted wool into thin strips and reduced each one to its constituent fibres, then his nimble fingers wove them into a ball of kindling. Seeing Frontinius’s frown, Martos leaned forward and spoke quietly into the Tungrian’s ear.

‘He is a master at this. The secret lies in achieving the right mix of dry and damp material to sustain a flame.’

As he spoke the kneeling warrior looked up, his grating voice barely distinguishable from the blizzard’s howl.

‘And knowing which of the gods will answer my prayer.’

He stared up into the grey clouds briefly, his lips moving as he muttered an invocation to whatever deity it was that guided his hands, then he bent forward and struck a hard blow at the flint in his left hand with the rough iron haft of his dagger. A shower of sparks spat down into the kindling, and he bent so close to the ball that his nose was almost touching it, then blew softly onto the tiny spots of light. The men around him held their breath, but after a moment he knelt back on his heels with a grunt, raising his head to stare into the sky and repeat his invocation for divine assistance. Flint and iron met again, and again the barbarian bent over his kindling and blew with the delicate care of a man tending his firstborn, but again he sat back with a slight shake of his head. ‘The forest goddess is strong, and she forbids the flame in her kingdom.’ He lifted the dagger and pulled back his left sleeve to reveal a forearm crudely scored with cuts. Most of them had long since healed to white scars, but a few were fresher, their marks a livid red on his pale flesh. Martos leaned close to Frontinius, muttering in his ear.

‘Sometimes the gods want blood as the price of their assistance. This is his secret.’

Frontinius nodded solemnly, watching as Aerth dragged the dagger’s shining blade down the length of his arm, the cut finely judged to be more than a scratch yet not so deep as to require stitching. A dark red rivulet ran down his arm to his fingertips, and, once more intoning the vow to serve his gods, the barbarian flicked his fingers three times, shooting drops of blood into the kindling’s entwined wood and leaves. Bending to his task again he lifted the dagger to strike, muttered a final word of entreaty, and hammered the iron home, sending a shower of sparks into the ball. After blowing gently on the kindling he turned his head away to breathe, then blew again, a little harder this time and with an intent focus on one of the few lingering spots of light. At first the spark remained no more than a hint of fire, but then it blossomed, taking hold of a scrap of greasy cloak material and swelling from spark to tiny flame. Aerth turned the ball in his hands, seeking to play the infant fire onto the best of the kindling, then looked up at Martos with a decisive nod. The one-eyed Votadini chieftain gestured urgently to the mound of wood and foliage.

‘Now is the time, First Spear! The fire will quickly burn through that much fuel!’

Frontinius reached out to take the jar and pulling its stopper. He turned to the dark mass of wood, pouring a generous measure of the liquid onto a thick limb that protruded into the clearing, its branches thickly coated with dark green needles, then he ran a trail of the pungent fluid along the limb and into the centre of the fire. An acrid smell filled the air, making his eyes water as he stepped back.

‘Light that. But keep your face away from it. When it ignites it will burn like fury.’

Aerth stepped forward with no sign of having listened to the Roman officer’s words, his eyes fixed upon the ball of kindling whose heart was now ablaze between his cupped hands. He stooped to hold it beneath the outstretched branch, playing the growing flame on the reeking wood. In an instant the flame found fuel, igniting the evaporating spirit with a loud whump and an explosion of fire that sent the barbarian back on his heels. He raised a hand to protect his eyes from the fire as it roared from infancy to full adulthood in a heartbeat, greedily chasing the trail of liquid laid by the first spear into the centre of the bonfire. The Votadini watched in amazed silence as the man-high pile of fresh timber went up in a pillar of flame, the pine needles laid beneath the logs giving up their stored resin in gouts of flame strong enough to take hold of the green timber

‘For the secret of this fire, I would give everything I have, and cut myself one hundred times.’

Frontinius turned to find Aerth at his shoulder, his eyes fixed on the blazing pile of wood, his eyebrows no more than a memory and the residual stench of burnt hair. He unstoppered the jar again and held it up for the other man to sniff, watching with dark amusement as the barbarian recoiled at the eye-watering vapour rising from the container’s wide neck, replying in the man’s own language.

‘There is no secret, brother. This is naphtha, a natural liquid which can be purchased for more coin than you and I could ever imagine spending on the simple task of lighting a fire. Even the small amount that lit this blaze cost my tribune enough gold to pay eight soldiers for a year.’

Aerth nodded, staring deep into the fire’s heart, and Frontinius realised that he was fascinated by the flame, drawn to it by something deep in his being. He clapped the barbarian on the shoulder and turned away, handing the jar to his century’s chosen man.

‘Put a guard on this. Two good men… no, four men that you could trust to defend your woman’s honour. The contents are worth enough money to pay the century for a year, and there will be more than one man with his eye on that jar now the power it contains is known.’

He looked about him in the bonfire’s flickering light, bellowing an order over the swelling flames’ angry roar.

‘Centurions, to me! Let’s get some more of these fires burning!’

‘Perhaps you Romans will see the sense in leaving Arduenna well alone in future, eh? Many are her weapons, and this untimely snow is simply another example of her ability to deal with any intruder bent on defiling her sacred groves. She has shown that she will not tolerate your boots on her soil in sufficient numbers to defeat us, and we can wrap ourselves so deep in her protection that you might never find us in a month of searching. A little to the right here.. ’

The path along which Marcus was being guided began to flatten out after its long climb, and after another moment of walking, still being guided by Obduro’s hand on his sleeve, the Roman felt a sudden change in the air around him. The snow was no longer being whipped into his face, and he felt stone underfoot. When the bandit leader’s hollow voice spoke again its note was subtly different.

‘Down these steps… that’s it, feel for them with your feet and take it slowly, we don’t want you going down them head first. And here we are. That’s better.’

Marcus heard the sound of a cloak being shaken, then felt hands on the knot of his blindfold, while the point of a weapon dug sharply into his back and froze him in place. The rough woollen strip was pulled clear of his eyes, and he found himself blinking in the light of a blazing torch held by one of his captor’s men, while Obduro himself stood barely an arm’s reach from him, apparently examining him closely from behind the anonymity of his mask. Despite his readiness for any attempt at intimidation by his captor, Marcus was nevertheless taken aback by the experience of finding himself face to face with the bandit leader. Where he had been expecting a big man, capable of dominating his men with brute force, the bandit leader was of no better than average height and build. What caught the breath in Marcus’s throat was the mask attached to his cavalry helmet; when viewed from so close, its perfect shining surface reflected the scene around them.

In the reflection’s foreground were two figures, his own and that of the hulking bandit who had stunned and blindfolded him in the forest. The big man Grumo was lurking behind him with a spear held ready to drive through his armour’s rings and deep into his back, a slight smile on his coarse-featured face. Around them, its reality distorted by the mask’s curves, was a cave, every feature thrown into stark relief by the light of a dozen torches attached to the walls. Looking around him Marcus saw nothing to change his first impression, of sandy walls and a rock floor swept clean of any sign of previous occupants. The cave was twenty paces across and forty deep, and in a deep recess at the far end he could see a heavy wooden chair. Looking back at Obduro, he realised that the proximity of the blazing torch to the man’s masked face was deliberate, making his eyes quite impossible to make out in the dark shadowed pits of the mask’s apertures.

‘This is the lowest level of our refuge, the place where we bring our prisoners for interrogation.’ The bandit leader’s voice took on a different quality in the confined space, adding a booming echo to the unearthly quality granted to it by the mask. He waved a hand at the men standing to either side, and they moved smartly into what appeared to be a well-practised routine, lifting the torches that lit the cave from their places on the walls and carrying them down the length of the underground room into the recess at the far end. Fitting the brands into iron loops set in the rock, the bandits quickly transformed the cave’s far end from deep shadow to a blaze of light, surrounding the wooden chair with an arc of fire.

‘Leave us.’

Waving the guards away, Obduro beckoned Marcus with his hand, drawing his sword as he walked through the cave at a leisurely pace, and dropping into the chair with the blade across his knees.

‘You may sit, Centurion. I dare say you’re used to more comfort, but I can assure you that you’re having a very easy time of it by comparison with the last man I brought to this place.’ With an arc of torches arrayed behind him the bandit’s aspect was changed again, the arc of fire rendering even the helmet’s gleaming surface almost invisible, and presenting Marcus with nothing more than a darkened silhouette. ‘I usually feel safe to remove this helmet’s uncomfortable burden at this point, for two reasons. One is that all this light behind me makes my face impossible to see. Can you guess the other?’

Marcus spoke after a moment’s deliberation, making the swift decision not to back down in the face of the bandit leader’s supreme self-confidence.

‘Why worry, when it is your intention to kill them?’

‘Right in one. My men in the city told me that you were a bright one, Centurion Corvus, and I can see why.’

The Roman shifted in surprise.

‘You know my name?’

Marcus instinctively knew from the set of the other man’s head behind the mask’s inscrutable features that he was grinning behind the shining metal.

‘Better than that, Centurion. I know both of them.’

‘So when did he go missing?’

Dubnus shook his head unhappily.

‘We found the bandits’ camp, as expected. It seemed to have been deserted only a short time before, and we were in the act of checking it for any sign of them when the snow started falling. A moment after that they started shooting arrows at us from out of the trees. One of the men took a shaft in the leg, and Marcus charged into them to give us time to get him out. I went back for him, but the snow was so bloody thick that I could have been twenty paces from a fortress wall and never known it was there. I called his name several times, but there was no answer. I shouldn’t have turned my back on him, not for a second.’

He stopped talking, and watched his superior’s face as Frontinius stared at the forest’s snow-covered floor, then back up at his officer, raising his voice to be heard over the blizzard’s constant moan.

‘So he’s either dead or captive. Either way there’s nothing I can do. Look about you…’

Most of the three cohorts were gathered round blazing fires built of felled pines while the remainder were working in tent-party-sized gangs, using torches fashioned from branches to hunt the surrounding forest for anything that would burn. All of them were huddled into their cloaks, every man wearing every piece of clothing he had carried from the city in an attempt to keep the storm’s cold at bay.

‘I know. We’ve next to no chance of finding the same spot in this weather, and sending men out in this might just be their death sentence.’

Frontinius nodded grimly.

‘And in any case I’ve got work for you. Round up a couple of tent parties, borrow some axes from Titus and get about cutting down some more trees. It looks like this weather’s set in for the night.’

Marcus stared at the masked man, fighting to keep his face expressionless while his captor rammed home his advantage over his captive.

‘I know everything about you, Centurion. I know how much you paid for that pretty sword, I know when your wife’s baby is due to be born, and I know who you really are and where you come from. Secrets are my currency, Marcus Valerius Aquila. Secrets are my bread and butter. Secrets are what put food on these men’s plates, and what keep us both from the imperial executioner. I know things about the men who rule Tungrorum, both officially through the power of the emperor and unofficially through the strength of the gangs that control the streets, things that would see them executed within a day were I to make them known. I have access to most of the official documentation and messages that pass through the offices of those men, and there’s usually a tiny nugget of gold in every cartload of that shit. And to judge from the look on your face I’m making somewhat better use of it than that fool Caninus, eh? Prefect Caninus? The man’s a joke, as incapable a thief-taker as I might have wished to be set on our trail. When the time is right I will kill him, as well he knows, but for now his inadequacy is perfect for my purposes.’

He sat in silence for a moment, then spoke again, his voice softer.

‘But never mind our mutual friend the prefect, let’s talk some more about you, shall we, Centurion? You are, as we both know, Marcus Valerius Aquila, the son of a murdered senator and a fugitive from the emperor’s hunters. The despatches from Rome say that you are believed to have taken refuge with one of the cohorts that patrol Britannia’s northern wall, and that the reward for your capture has been doubled since the disappearance of both a Praetorian centurion and a corn officer sent to capture you, adding murder of imperial officials to your original crime of treason. You’re a dangerous man, it seems, and, in the absence of any living family, a man without any vulnerability to exploit, if I ignore your wife and unborn child.’

He waved a hand dismissively at Marcus’s hardening face.

‘Never fear, I don’t make war on women or children, any more than you would. And besides, why would I feel any need to threaten a man who has so much in common with me? I too am a fugitive from the empire’s version of justice, as so ineptly administered by Prefect Caninus. I too would like nothing better than to return to my home and live in peace, but, just like you, I’m left with little choice but to fight for survival, taking what I can when I can. You and I, Valerius Aquila, we should be fighting together against injustice rather than crossing swords as enemies.’

He stood and walked towards Marcus, eclipsing the torches behind him as he stood in front of the Roman.

‘Consider my words, Centurion, and give them time before rejecting the idea. You and I would make a combination that no man could bring down. With Arduenna’s favour we could hold this forest against any force the governor could send against us, and build an army that would hold the survival of the German frontier garrisons in the palm of one hand. Join me, Valerius Aquila, and you and I will decide the fate of this whole province, and take revenge on those men who have wronged us. Or does the life of a fugitive centurion, living in constant fear of discovery, and the murder of all those who have aided and befriended you hold such an attraction? You are my guest for the night, for this storm will not blow itself out before the sun rises again, which means that you have more than enough time to think on my words. Consider my offer carefully, Valerius Aquila. I will seek an answer from you in the morning.’ He turned away to the cave’s entrance. ‘Grumo!’ The big man appeared in the archway, and Obduro gestured to the Roman. ‘Set four spearmen to guard this chamber. We don’t want him getting any ideas about escape.’

‘It seems to be easing off.’

Julius followed Dubnus’s pointing hand, looking up into the night sky.

‘The flakes are a little smaller, I’ll give you that. And about bloody time, I’ve had about as much snow as I ever want to see in this lifetime.’

He waved a hand at the clearing’s dimly lit scene, and the hundreds of men listlessly clustered around the fires’ glowing remnants. Their boots and the fires’ warmth had quickly reduced the snow-soaked ground around the fires to ankle-deep mud, and made the task of dragging fresh wood from the clearing’s edge an exhausting struggle against both the weight of their burden and the sticky ground’s resistance. The axemen had long since handed their weapons to fresh hands, their bodies exhausted and their hands cut and blistered despite the calluses developed over years of service. Their replacements’ rate of work with the heavy axes had proven so slow that Frontinius had eventually decided to cut his losses and stop the work.

Dubnus pointed again, tapping Julius on the arm.

‘Look, I can see stars. The cloud’s breaking up.’

The dawn confirmed his expectation, revealing a sky free of any cloud, as if the heavens had been swept clean by the storm, and as the sun rose it lit up the clearing with a rosy light that stained the remaining snow gold. Frontinius and Sergius conferred briefly, then set their men to taking a swift breakfast in preparation for the march back to Tungrorum. The first spear gathered his centurions.

‘It’s time for some pragmatism, gentlemen. There’s no way we’ll be able to find Obduro’s gang after that heavy a snowfall, never mind fight them. Once the sun gets up and melts all this snow the forest will turn into a quagmire, and I see no point in our wallowing round in it while they sit in whatever fortress they’ve built and laugh at us, or, worse still, pick us off as we blunder about on ground they know intimately. Have your men eat whatever they’ve got left and then get ready to march. We’re cutting our losses and marching for the city.’

Julius raised a hand, his usually jocular approach to such gatherings replaced by a look of such solemnity that Frontinius, knowing what was coming, forestalled his request.

‘No, Centurion, you may not take a small party into the forest looking for any sign of Centurion Corvus. You wouldn’t stand much chance of finding him, and in the unlikely event that you did you’d most likely find him in the company of several hundred bandits. Either way it’s not a risk I’m minded to take. I’ll worry about our missing centurion once the odds are a little less stacked against us.’

Marcus woke in darkness, and for a moment imagined that he was in his own bed next to Felicia. The hard floor beneath him and the stiffness in his back reminded him where he was, and with a groan he sat up, propping himself up against the wall. After a moment a light appeared at the far end of the cave, as a guard carrying a torch came through the opening that led to the rest of the bandit encampment.

‘Follow me.’

Stretching the stiffness out of his limbs, the Roman got up and walked towards the light. As he reached the cave’s opening he found himself faced by a pair of levelled spear points, and behind them stood Grumo, the big man who had blindfolded him the previous evening. He shot the Roman a long disparaging look, his tone a mixture of hatred and contempt when he finally spoke.

‘Obduro wishes to speak with you. I would have slit your throat, but he’s ordered that you be spared. Come this way.’

He walked away to the steps that led up into the open air, but Marcus paused and looked about him before following, his curious gaze darting down the corridor to another opening in the rock wall. One of the guards prodded him in the back with the point of his spear, then they both fell in behind Marcus, their weapons still levelled at his back as he followed their leader up a flight of crudely hewn stone steps and out into the bright sunlight, blinking and raising a hand to protect his unprepared eyes.

‘ Bring him to me! ’

He turned towards the sound of Obduro’s voice, and he realised that he was in the very heart of the bandit fortress, a wide enclosure bounded by log palisades that reared fully twenty feet off the ground, with wooden buildings huddled under the walls to provide the gang’s men with shelter. Men stood around him on every side, many of them still clad in the remnants of their imperial uniforms, the remainder in simple woodsmen’s clothing, but every man was armed with a spear, sword and shield, and many had bows strung across their shoulders. The men guarding him pushed him towards their waiting leader, and as the throng of men parted Marcus saw that Obduro was standing before what appeared to be an altar. As he drew closer the Roman realised that the stone block, long and wide enough to accommodate a man’s body, was intricately carved with images of Arduenna riding through the forest on her boar. In every scene men were dying at her hand, pierced with arrows and hewn with a variety of weapons, their death agonies apparent from their contorted bodies. A variety of offerings were hanging from hooks carved into the stone, and amongst their clutter he saw something that made him frown momentarily with a spark of recognition, even though he was unable to put a finger on what it was. Mistaking the frown for disapproval Obduro spoke, a mocking note in his voice.

‘This captive finds our altar distasteful, my brothers, although I can’t think why.’ His voice rang out across the silent camp, and the men gathered around them hissed their disapproval. Their leader half turned to the stone slab, waving a hand at its decorations. ‘See the fine carvings that illustrate our devotion to the goddess!’

Marcus nodded.

‘I’ve seen the artist’s work before, I believe. It’s certainly of a high quality. Which makes it a shame to cover so much of it with this… ephemera.’

The bandit leader turned back, shaking his helmeted head as if in sorrow.

‘Each item here belonged to a man who met his fate on this altar, his blood drained and collected for our ceremonies. We keep them to remind us of their sacrifices.’

Marcus looked closer at the stone slab, seeing for the first time that it was covered in an intricate pattern of grooves that resolved into a number of deeper channels, which in turn merged to end at a single lip at the altar’s edge. He raised an eyebrow at the bandit leader.

‘I thought that the blood sacrifice had been stamped out across the empire.’

Obduro stepped forward, putting a hand on Marcus’s chin and lifting his head to expose the skin of his throat.

‘You have the look of a man who would bleed well for us, Valerius Aquila. You may be under my protection, but any word that besmirches our goddess would leave me no choice but to add the strength of your life to ours, and your body to the bone pit.’

Marcus kept his face devoid of expression.

‘I meant no disrespect to your goddess. Her powers were demonstrated to me all too well yesterday. I was simply surprised to find that the practice has survived.’

Obduro snorted with laughter, releasing his grip on his captive’s face.

‘How very Roman of you! Your empire declares a thing to be forbidden, and we savages are expected to change the ways that have served us well for as long as we can recall. We never stopped the practice, Centurion, we simply moved it to places where the empire wouldn’t be troubled by it! And where there will never be any danger of the empire intruding upon our privacy. For as you can see, Valerius Aquila, we are more than ready for any attempt to dislodge us from this hilltop. Our palisade is twenty feet tall, but each log is also buried ten feet deep in the earth, and they are secured to each other by cross beams and good strong Roman nails taken from the convoys that supply the army on the Rhenus. A legion’s catapult would struggle to make much of an impression on walls that thick, even if such a burden could be dragged through the forest and up this hill. Our gate has inner and outer doors, and any force that managed to open the outer gate would pay a heavy price for the pleasure of facing the thick wood behind it. You will not see the slopes around this fortress, since you will be leaving us as blind as when you arrived, but I can assure you that no aspect of modern siege warfare has been overlooked in our preparation to resist any attack by the forces that would dearly like to end our independence from your subjugation.’

Marcus realised that the bandit leader was speaking as much to his own men as to his captive, and he looked about with a genuine interest. When he spoke, he pitched his voice low and soft, forcing Obduro to lean closer to hear his words, momentarily blocking the sunlight that was making the Roman squint at him through half-closed eyes.

‘I’ve seen stronger walls fall.’

Obduro leaned back, a chuckle rattling out from behind the shining mask.

‘I’m sure you have, Centurion, but I’d bet good money that they fell with the assistance of a push from inside, eh? No man here would be foolish enough to consider such betrayal, not given his likely swift reward by wood and nails once the fight was over. I believe the penalty for brigandage is still prompt execution, carried out without exception?’

He turned to the encircling warriors, raising his voice to be heard.

‘The centurion here believes these walls can be toppled, but I think we know the truth of the matter, you men and I. First they have to find us. Then they have to reach this hill in a fit condition to fight. And then they have to batter in our gates, or come over our walls, and do so in the teeth of our resistance. And our teeth are very sharp! The goddess clearly favours us, as she demonstrated yesterday as soon as the first of the unbelievers set foot in the forest. We are too well hidden, too well protected, and too well defended for their efforts to end in anything other than slaughter and defeat.’ The bandits stood in silence, their gazes locked on Marcus, and Obduro turned back to face him. ‘Let us get to the point, shall we? I spared you, Valerius Aquila, in the hope that you will choose to join with us against a common enemy. You have suffered as great an injustice as any man here, and I would be honoured to have you stand alongside me. What is your answer?’

Marcus shook his head with an expression of polite regret, wondering as he did so how the apparently ruthless bandit leader might react to his rejection.

‘Thank you for your offer. I am, however, forced to decline your generosity. I cannot accept the offer of service against my own people.’ He paused for a moment, compelled to shoot a glance at Obduro’s shining face mask despite the futility of seeking any reaction. ‘I still serve the empire.’

Obduro turned away, shaking his helmeted head in disappointment.

‘A shame. I had hopes of you, Valerius Aquila. No matter, you can still serve as a messenger. So take this message back to Tungrorum! Your spears may have done for every other bandit in this entire province, but it would take a legion and more to dig us out of this place, and even then at a grievous cost in dead soldiers. And before I have you escorted to the edge of the forest, let me show you one more thing. Bring me his weapons!’ A man came forward with Marcus’s swords, and Obduro waited while he strapped the belt about him and hung the weapons’ baldricks over his shoulders. ‘You have a long sword of local manufacture, I hear, a fine weapon for which you paid a high price. May I see it?’

Marcus drew the pattern-welded spatha, conscious of the spear points waiting within inches of his back, and handed it hilt first to Obduro. The bandit leader tested the weapon’s balance and peered closely at its dappled blade, nodding his appreciation.

‘A fine weapon indeed, and worth every moment of the smith’s labour. I would call it the finest sword I had ever seen, were it not in the shadow of this…’ He handed Marcus the spatha and waited until it was sheathed, then drew his own blade and presented the hilt to his captive. ‘Be mindful that my men will kill you if you so much as look at me in the wrong way while you hold this weapon. They have seen the havoc that it can wreak upon the best-armed men.’

Marcus gingerly accepted the sword, holding it with one hand on the hilt and the blade resting across his arm, admiring the workmanship but frowning at the weapon’s metal, a darker shade of grey than any sword he had seen previously, its entire length dappled with a pattern so dark as to be almost black. Obduro chuckled.

‘Let me spare you the trouble of asking the question. You look at the sword and you wonder from what manner of iron it has been wrought. The answer is that even I do not know for certain, although the man from whom I took it boasted that it had been forged in Damascus, in the distant east, with iron brought along trade routes which run far beyond the empire’s frontiers. He called it his “Leopard Sword”, and claimed that it had magical properties bestowed upon it by the gods.’ The masked man laughed darkly. ‘As to whether it is so blessed is not clear to me, but whatever divine properties it may possess clearly did not extend to the man from whom I took it. Such a blade may make an expert swordsman unassailable, but he was nothing of the sort. But in the hands of a master, like myself…’

He held out a hand for the weapon, and Marcus handed it back to him with a final long stare at the marvellously patterned blade. Wielding the sword with a flourish, Obduro called out a command to his men, three of whom stepped forward to face him with their shields raised, drawing their swords and slapping the blades against the brass shield edgings in a challenge to fight. Reaching out to take a small round shield the bandit leader sidestepped towards his practice partners, allowing them to edge around him until he was surrounded on three sides. Speaking over his shoulder to Marcus he hefted the sword, ready to fight.

‘Even the best swordsman would consider this situation a challenge worthy of his years of practice, but even now this blade gives me such an unfair advantage that were this a real fight these men would already be standing corpses, even if they did not yet know it. They have orders to fight me as they would a real opponent, and they know that I will not harm them if I can avoid doing so… a fair test of a swordsman’s prowess, I think you’ll agree.’

He lunged towards the man waiting before him, inducing a quick defensive back step from his opponent, then turned quickly and attacked the bandit behind him and to his right, striking hard at his opponent’s sword and, to Marcus’s amazement, effortlessly cleaving the blade in two and dropping a foot of pointed iron into the melting snow. Backhanding the blade back across the hapless bandit’s body, he hacked the man’s shield in two with a slicing cut that seemed to rip cleanly through the layered board and its brass rim as if it were no thicker than paper. As the disarmed bandit stepped back, raising his hands in surrender, the other two stamped in, seeing their chance to best their leader before he turned on either of them to repeat the trick, but Obduro was too quick for them, ducking under one swinging blow and hooking the man’s back foot with his own leg to dump him on the ground, then raising the mottled blade to drive it down through the length of the other’s shield from top to bottom, splitting it in two to leave him defenceless. The bandit screamed out a curse and dropped his sword, clutching at the hand that had been gripping the shield’s horizontal handle as a thick stream of blood gushed from between his fingers, and Marcus realised that the fearsome blade had hacked a deep cut into his hand between the middle knuckles. The last man put up his sword, unwilling to suffer a similar wound, and Obduro shrugged, looking at his weapon’s blade and wiping the blood from it with a rag before dropping it back into its scabbard.

‘Sometimes it is necessary to make a small sacrifice to demonstrate a point. He will be well cared for. And you see my point? In the hands of an average swordsman this weapon is formidable, whereas in mine it is given speed and purpose that make it invincible. This demonstration was for your benefit, Centurion Aquila, to ensure that you don’t get any ideas about attempting to find this place and seeking to use your undoubted skills upon me once you are healed. We may be equally blessed with the ability to throw iron around, but even the beautiful workmanship of your blade would be no match for this.’ He held the darkly dappled sword up to the light, turning his masked face to stare up at it. ‘And now it is time for you to perform the purpose for which I have spared you, Valerius Aquila. Go and tell your tribune that on this occasion he would be well advised to leave us alone. Your welcome here is now at an end, and the next time I see you I will be looking down the blade of my Leopard Sword at a standing corpse. Grumo.’

He nodded to the big man standing alongside Marcus, and as the Roman turned to see what he meant the bandit’s huge fist smashed into his jaw, dropping him to the ground with his face on fire with pain. A pair of boots stepped into his field of view as he knelt in the snow, and without looking up he knew that Obduro had moved to stand over him.

‘Forgive me, Valerius Aquila, for this last indignity. I can hardly release a man whose skill at arms is the match of my own without taking some small step to remove him from the forces ranged against me, can I?’

Blindfolded once more, and little better than semi-conscious, Marcus was led out of the bandit encampment and down the hill, then out into the forest. The big man walked him in silence, speaking only to communicate changes of direction, and after what seemed an age of half walking and half staggering, he muttered a single word of command.

‘Stop.’

The faint tang of wood smoke was in the air, carried on the breeze, and in the forest’s deep silence the Roman wondered whether he could hear, at the very edge of his battered senses, men’s voices barking orders. While he stood still, unsure as to whether Obduro’s command that he was to be kept alive was to be obeyed, he sensed the bandit moving around him. The big man gripped his injured jaw with one hand, its hold so fierce that it was all Marcus could do to stop himself groaning with the pain, and tore the blindfold away with the other. Keeping a tight hold of his prisoner’s face Grumo leaned close to him, his sour breath warm on the Roman’s skin in the morning’s chill. Swaying, and struggling to focus on the looming shadow, part blinded by the sudden sunlight and blinking fruitlessly against the effects of the blow he’d received, the Roman stared back at him, completely defenceless.

‘Look at you.’ The big man hawked and spat at his prisoner’s feet. ‘The mighty Roman conqueror? I could do you with my eating knife. If I didn’t know the chief would find out I’d butcher you here, and leave you for the pigs. You killed three of my men yesterday, and the next time I see you I won’t be waiting for anyone’s permission to finish the job.’ He released his hold on Marcus’s jaw, putting the flat of his hand on the Roman’s forehead and sending him staggering away to land on his back in the melting snow. ‘Away with you! Come back any time…’ He turned away, calling a final comment over his shoulder. ‘I’ll be waiting!’

The three cohorts had crossed the river in an orderly fashion, the first men across spreading out in centuries to provide security for those following, although in truth the soldiers were more interested in soaking up the morning’s sunshine than in any unlikely threat, now that they were back on friendly ground. The remaining force on the river’s southern bank had been reduced in strength in an orderly manner under Frontinius’s close control, the withdrawal of each century from the line defending the bridge’s southern end being matched by a contraction of the bridgehead, until at length there were only two centuries left.

‘Take your men across first, Dubnus. Julius and I will follow once your last man’s on the bridge.’

Dubnus saluted the first spear, turning away and barking orders at his chosen man and watch officer.

‘Move your arses, Eighth Century! By tent party, get across that bridge and reform! Smartly, mind you, you’ve got an audience!’

He stalked away towards the river, upbraiding his men for the state of their dress with a vehemence that brought a grim smile to Julius’s face.

‘It sounds like our colleague is about as happy as I feel this morning, sunshine or no bloody sunshine.’

Frontinius grunted his agreement, sweeping the trees around the clearing’s scene of devastation with one last, long stare, then he turned to watch as the 8th Century started to cross the river.

‘We might have been lucky only to have lost two men, you know. It looks to me as if they knew we were coming.’

Julius nodded morosely.

‘But to have lost Marcus of all men. Someone will have to tell his w-’

A man in the front rank of his 5th Century interrupted with a hoarse shout, pointing out into the trees.

‘Man coming in! Looks like one of ours!’

Both officers spun to follow his pointing arm, and Julius’s jaw dropped at the sight of a bedraggled centurion struggling out of the trees. He ran for the clearing’s edge, waving his men forward.

‘ On me! ’

The century sprinted forward in his wake, splitting to either side of the exhausted Marcus as he collapsed into Julius’s arms. Frontinius limped up behind them, bellowing for them to form a line and staring into the trees for any sign of pursuit.

‘Get some shields around him!’

With the 5th Century covering them, Frontinius and Julius lifted their semi-conscious comrade between them and walked him towards the bridge, exchanging unhappy glances as he tottered on his dragging feet despite their support. Julius eyed the river’s width uncertainly, giving Marcus’s bruised face and slitted eyes an appraising stare.

‘He’ll not make the crossing unaided, and if he falls in we’ll lose him.’

Frontinius shook his head.

‘He won’t need to. Look.’

Lugos had cast his war hammer aside and was striding across the bridge, a determined look on his face. He strode up to the two officers and looked down at Marcus, who lifted a weary hand in greeting. Without saying a word the Selgovae warrior bent to examine the Roman’s face, his hands surprisingly gentle as he touched the bruised jaw. Shaking his head he waved the two centurions aside, then squatted onto his haunches in front of Marcus, put his shoulder into the exhausted man’s stomach and straightened his legs, hoisting the Roman and his equipment into the air like a tired infant at bedtime. He turned back towards the bridge without a word, and Frontinius watched him step onto the submerged bridge with exaggerated care, speaking to Julius without taking his eyes off the giant warrior and his burden.

‘We’d best get him on a cart and away to Tungrorum. If that bruising on his face is what it looks like then he’s going to need all his wife’s skill to put that jaw straight again.’

Felicia took one look at her husband as Dubnus and Julius carried him through the surgery door, and pointed to the operating table that dominated the room.

‘Lift him up there, please, gentlemen.’ She examined the swelling bruise that was distending the right side of his face with slow, careful hands. Marcus leaned forward and muttered something in her ear, and she looked round at his colleagues with an expression only a little the right side of distress, shaking her head. ‘He’s clearly concussed, although I don’t suppose you need me to tell you that. His jaw’s badly hurt, from the feel of it. Perhaps not completely broken, but certainly fractured. He won’t be able to eat solid food or speak for at least a fortnight, probably longer. Undress him, please.’

The two centurions pulled Marcus’s armour over his head while he sat and shivered with the pain, his eyes dull and unfocused. Dubnus grinned at him, looking critically at the swelling that had doubled the size of his jaw on one side.

‘We’d better stay for a while, eh? Your woman will need a pair of big strong boys to hold you down if she decides to amputate. And if you die, don’t forget I’m first in line for that pretty sword.’

‘The first person in line for that pretty sword will be me, Centurion, given the amount he spent on it.’ Dubnus bowed to the doctor as she re-entered the surgery with an armful of jars.

‘Of course, ma’am, it’s simply-’

‘Soldiers’ humour. I know. But since my husband is all but unconscious with the pain I’d say the person you’re amusing most is yourself. And it’s hardly you that’s in need of reassurance, is it?’ She put the jars down and bowed her head over them for a moment before turning and taking the abashed centurion’s hand, her eyes wet with tears. ‘Forgive me, Dubnus, no one’s made any greater sacrifice for Marcus and me, and I thank you for it. I’m just…’

The big man raised his hand to silence her apology.

‘I know. Work your magic on him and ignore my prattling. How can we help?’

She turned back to the jars, rapidly dispensing two small quantities of powder into a cup of wine before stirring honey into the mixture, then passing the concoction to Dubnus.

‘Get him to drink this. It may be bitter even with the honey, but I can’t work on the injury until he’s drunk it all. Here — ’ she passed him a thin tube made of glass — ‘he can use this to avoid having to open his mouth for the cup.’

Marcus winced at the mixture’s taste, but saw the look on his wife’s face and lowered his head obediently to sip at it again. Julius leaned over and smelled the cup, wrinkling his nose at the odour.

‘What’s in the drink?’

Felicia replied over her shoulder while she laid out her equipment.

‘It’s a mixture of the dried sap of the poppy and something I’ve been reading about recently: the dried and powdered root of the mandrake plant. The imperial physician Galen recommends its use for the sedation of a patient to whom the treatment must inevitably cause pain. Make sure he drinks it all.’

Waiting until Marcus’s eyes closed, and he failed to respond to a hard pinch of the soft skin on the back of his hand, she took a gentle hold of his jaw and palpated the bruised area with her fingers. When he failed to react she took a firmer grasp, and delicately put pressure on the bone, pressing it with the flat of her hand. Letting out a sigh of relief she nodded to the centurions.

‘As I thought, the bone isn’t shattered. Whatever hit him either only caught him a glancing blow, or, more likely, wasn’t made of iron. A fist, perhaps? I expect that there’s a crack in the bone though, so I shall give him the only three treatments that are available to me. Pass me that thread, please, Dubnus.’ She took the reel of thread from the puzzled centurion. ‘Now hold his mouth open for me, as gently as you can.’ Looping the slender cord around one of her husband’s front teeth, and tying a tight knot to secure it, she wound the thread around the tooth behind it, carefully pulling it tight, then repeated the act with the tooth behind that. ‘Now, this is the important one. I suspect that the crack in the jawbone is between this tooth and the next, so I need to pull it closed by using the teeth as anchor posts for the thread. Open his mouth as wide as you can, please.’ She reached deeper into Marcus’s mouth, slipping a noose around the tooth in question then tugging it tight, with a small smile of triumph. ‘Got it.’

Winding the thread tooth by tooth back to the original anchoring point, she tied it off and stood back from her unconscious husband, reaching behind her for another jar. Pulling out the container’s stopper she dipped a finger into the off-white paste inside and rubbed it gently along the line of Marcus’s swollen jaw.

‘This is knitbone, a flowering herb that has been boiled in water and then ground into a paste and incorporated into this salve. Rubbing this ointment on his face twice a day will help the bone to knit more quickly. And now…’ She selected a long bandage and looped it around Marcus’s head, tying it loosely across his jaw. ‘Tight enough to provide some support to the bone, not tight enough to force the crack open again. And that, gentlemen, is the limit of my abilities. All we can do now is leave him to sleep off the treatment, and offer whatever prayers we feel might help the gods to smile favourably on his recovery. I believe there’s an arrow wound for me to deal with, now we’ve done all we can for this officer, and after that there’s a case of frostbite?’

‘There’s little enough to tell, Tribune. We rode west until the snow started, fortunately close enough to a farm to take shelter in their barn, and waited it out overnight. Anyone stuck out on the road will have had a miserable time of it. Once the snow lifted we rode straight back here to find out what had become of your raid into the forest.’

Seeing Julius and Dubnus standing in the doorway of the administration building, Caninus stopped his account of the last day’s events, and Scaurus, turning to find his centurions waiting for permission to enter, waved them in impatiently.

‘Gentlemen, you have news of our colleague?’

Both men marched in and came to attention, and Julius saluted before speaking.

‘The centurion has a fractured jaw, Tribune, and will require at least two weeks before returning to duty. Possibly longer.’

The tribune nodded.

‘We can be grateful for small mercies, then. Mithras was watching over him, no doubt about that. I’ve seen broken jaws before, teeth smashed and the man in question left with a deformed face for the rest of his life, invalided out of the service in extreme cases. So who’s to lead his century, First Spear?’

Frontinius cocked an eyebrow at Julius. His senior centurion spoke without hesitation.

‘His chosen man is a good man. Very good, as it happens. He’s been a bit morose of late though, which is a bit of a concern. I’m just wondering if he’s the right man to pick up Centurion Corvus’s lads, given their devotion to their officer. He’s been a temporary centurion before, of course, when the Hamians were shipped into Arab Town, but never led a century in combat.’

Frontinius nodded decisively.

‘It’s make or break, then. If Tribune Scaurus is in agreement you can inform Chosen Man Qadir that he’s appointed to lead the Ninth Century until Centurion Corvus is fit for duty. And you can impress upon him the fact that I’ll be watching him very closely. After all, we still need to rebuild the Sixth, once we can find another eighty men to reconstitute it, He might well be the right man to build a new century, if he can hold his men together for the next few days. Tribune?’

Scaurus nodded his agreement.

‘As ever, First Spear, I’ll defer to your judgement when it comes to managing your people.’ The two centurions saluted and turned to leave. ‘Centurion Julius, I’d like you to stay and take part in our discussion as to what happened in the Arduenna. I don’t believe we can determine our next steps until we work out just what it was that went so badly wrong. Whether it was betrayal or divine intervention, I’ll not put my men back into that forest until I know I can take the fight to this Obduro character without fear of finding an arrow protruding from between my shoulder blades.’

Marcus awoke to find himself lying in a hospital bed, still bone-weary from whatever it was that had been done to him while he was under the influence of Felicia’s potion. Content to lie in silence with his eyes closed as his mind surfaced from its long, deep dive into darkness, he gradually became aware of his surroundings: the scratchy feel of a blanket laid across his naked body and the hard frame of the bed beneath its thin mattress. A man groaned close by, and Marcus forced his eyes open, blinking painfully at the light of a lamp placed by his bed. Whoever it was alongside him was muttering quietly to himself, his stream of invective and profanity apparently inexhaustible.

‘Fifteen years! Fucking bandits! Fifteen bloody years keeping the bluenoses in their place and never anything more than a scratch, then some robbing, whoremongering, goat-fucking deserter puts an arrow through my bloody knee.’ The soldier was attempting to struggle to his feet with his back to the recumbent centurion, his left leg swathed in heavy bandages from thigh to calf and splinted to remove any mobility from the knee joint. He subsided onto the bed, his back still towards the now more or less wakened Marcus, and he was looking down at the wounded leg with evident disgust, to judge from his tone of voice. ‘If I could just get this fucking stick off, then I could bend the bastard enough to walk on it.’

You’ll be sorry if you try that, Marcus mused, knowing the doctor and her temper as well as I do. He tried to speak, but the combination of bandage and pain prevented him from making any sound other than a grunt.

The soldier turned as best he could, whipping up a hand in salute.

‘Sorry, Centurion, I didn’t realise you was awake! I suggested you might be better off in your own room, but Centurion Dubnus reckoned you’d be happier with some company. Here, I’ll get the orderly. Orderly! ’ He bellowed the summons at the top of his voice, and quick footsteps hurried down the corridor. Felicia appeared at the door, taking in the scene in an instant.

‘Get back in your bed, Soldier Sanga! And if I see you out of it without an orderly in attendance at any time before I give you permission to get up, I’ll have your centurion put you on punishment duty once you’re fit and well. And keep your hands off that splint; it’s there to stop you bending the leg and undoing all my good work in getting the arrow out without having to cut lumps out of your knee.’ Sanga raised a hand, and the doctor shook her head in further admonishment. ‘I’m not your centurion, Sanga, so you don’t have to raise a hand to speak to me. What is it?’

‘Need the latrine, ma’am.’

‘Is that all? Manius!’ The orderly put his head round the door, clearly as much in awe of the new doctor as the abashed Sanga. ‘This man needs to use the latrine. Front or back?’

‘Eh? Oh. Front, ma’am.’

She nodded to the orderly, who came into the room and pulled out a pan from beneath the bed. He helped Sanga to roll over until he could direct his urine into the pan, and the soldier emitted a long sigh of relief as he emptied his full bladder. Manius took a long hard look at the contents, then put his nose close to the surface and inhaled deeply, ignoring Sanga’s surprised expression. He passed the pan across the recumbent soldier’s body to the waiting doctor, and Felicia repeated the routine.

‘This seems healthy enough. Thank you, Manius.’ She passed the pan back to the orderly, and he carried it away down the corridor to the latrine, for disposal. ‘So now, Soldier Sanga, with your bladder safely emptied, you can lie quietly while I attend to the centurion here.’ With a practised eye she bent across Marcus and examined the swelling along the line of his jaw, then gently rubbed some more of the knitbone salve into the bruised flesh. ‘You mustn’t try to speak, or even open and close your mouth, until I tell you it’s safe to do so. We’ll feed you with soup through a tube, and you can use this to communicate.’

She passed him a hinged wooden writing tablet, its interior surfaces coated in soft wax. Marcus thought briefly, then took the stylus and wrote busily for a moment.

‘“When will I be allowed out of bed?”’ Her face creased into a smile. ‘That’s my husband. When I say so, Centurion! I want you to rest and get your strength back, what with the beating you took and the effect of the drugs I had to give you. Not for a day or two, at least. Now sit back and keep still, and you’ll be asleep again in a few minutes. From what I’ve read, the effects of the mandrake don’t wear off completely for a day or so.’ She kissed him on the forehead and turned to leave, only to find Sanga’s hand back in the air. ‘Yes, soldier?’

‘Ma’am, begging your pardon for being crude, but what should I do when I need to do — ’ he paused, searching for a word that wouldn’t offend the lady — ‘you know… the other?’

She looked at him in bafflement before making the connection.

‘Do the other? Ah, you mean when you need to open your bowels. Orderly Manius will bring you the pan, you will defecate into the pan, and then the orderly and I will have a good look at the results to ensure you have no problems in that respect either.’

Sanga’s face creased in incredulity.

‘You’re going to look at my sh-?’ He shook his head, clearly too bemused to express his amazement. ‘Oh well, if that’s what you have to do. Oh, and ma’am…?’ His face recovered a little of its usual cockiness. ‘Do I get a goodnight kiss too?’

Felicia’s face softened.

‘Of course you do, soldier.’ Sanga raised an eyebrow, too startled at having his bluff called to do anything as the doctor came round Marcus’s bed. She paused at the doorway, raising her voice to call down the long corridor. ‘ Manius! ’ The orderly put his head round the door again. ‘The soldier here needs a goodnight kiss.’ As she disappeared out of the door her last words on the subject floated back over her shoulder. ‘In your own time, gentlemen.’

When Marcus woke again there was daylight streaming into the room, and Sanga was sitting up in bed playing with a set of knucklebones.

‘Morning, Centurion!’ He saluted, then tossed a bone into the air, deftly flicking another into the space between the fingers of his other hand as it rested flat on the bed, before catching the falling bone. ‘All the horses are in the stable. Again.’

He sighed, with the expression of a man who had been playing with the bones all morning. A noise at the door made them both turn their heads.

‘And what have we here? One rather soiled-looking centurion, temporarily forbidden to speak on pain of having all domestic privileges removed…’ Dubnus, standing in the room’s doorway, raised a hand to forestall any attempt on Marcus’s behalf to speak. ‘No you don’t! I’ll not have your woman coming down on me like a chosen man with a sore arse just because you’re too dim to follow instructions. And a soldier with a hole in his knee, forbidden to walk and so reduced to sitting in his bed and playing children’s games. Scarface! ’ Sanga’s comrade appeared round the doorframe with another of Marcus’s men behind him, and Dubnus pointed to Sanga. ‘I’ve received permission from the doctor for these two to pick you up and take you outside for some fresh air, while Qadir and I have a chat with the centurion here.’

‘Best news I’ve had all day.’ Sanga beamed at the prospect of escape from the room’s confines. ‘Drop me off at the latrine, eh lads? I’ve got the turtle’s head as it is, and if I can avoid that bloody orderly picking through my crap I’ll be a happier man. The bastard was sniffing my piss last night…’

Scarface bustled into the room and grinned at his mate, taking in the knucklebones lying on his bed.

‘Bones, eh? Used to be right handy with them as a lad. Perhaps we can have a little contest, all in the interest of entertainment o’ course.’

He scooped up the bones and nodded to the other soldier. They lifted Sanga up, each with an arm over their shoulders, and carried him from the room, and the three centurions smiled to each other as they heard Felicia admonishing them not to allow him onto his feet for any reason, and Scarface’s reply.

‘No danger of that, ma’am. I don’t want him trying to leg it away from the losses he’s going to take once we get these bones jumping!’

‘That’s better, eh, a little bit of peace for you?’ Carrying a bowl of hot water and a cloth Dubnus advanced into the room, followed after a moment by Qadir. ‘Your wife asked us to get you cleaned up, since all you’ve done since we brought you in is lie about snoring.’ He set to with the wash cloth, and within minutes Marcus was sitting up with his writing tablet, while Dubnus and Qadir sat on either side of the bed. He wrote on the tablet’s wax, holding it up for them to see.

‘“Thank you for bringing me back”?’ Dubnus laughed. ‘You might not be thanking me in a week’s time, when you’re still not allowed to talk. How’s your head?’ Marcus rubbed the wax smooth and wrote his response across the clear surface. ‘“Better. Headache gone. Face still hurts.” And it’ll go on hurting for a few days. What hit you?’

In a series of one-line statements on the tablet’s limited writing surface Marcus explained what had happened. At length he sat back, already tired by the mental exercise. Dubnus, recognising the signs of his rapid exhaustion, asked one last question.

‘So their camp’s pretty much invulnerable, they reckon?’

Marcus nodded, smoothing the tablet’s surface again and writing a last comment. Dubnus patted his friend on the shoulder and stood up, pushing his chair back against the wall.

‘You look all in. Get some more sleep, and we’ll come back and see you tomorrow, eh?’

Qadir bent over his centurion, muttering a few quiet words. Marcus wrote a reply on his tablet, turned it for Qadir to read and raised his eyebrows in challenge, wearily lifting a clenched fist. The big Hamian looked at him for a moment, before solemnly tapping Marcus’s fist with his own. Then Qadir turned and followed Dubnus out of the door. Outside in the warm spring air they found Scarface and Sanga in the middle of a gathering of their tent party. Sanga was just about to toss the bones for what appeared to be the deciding throw of whatever wager had been agreed, to judge from the men’s intent expressions and the small pile of coins between them. The Hamian put a hand on Dubnus’s arm and shook his head silently, restraining him from either action or comment. He padded silently up to the group, unnoticed by the soldiers until he whipped out a broad hand and caught all four of the bones in mid-air. Sanga opened his mouth to protest, closing it again when he saw the expression on his new centurion’s face. The soldiers started to rise from their crouching positions, but Qadir’s bellowed command beat them to the punch.

‘As you were!’ Looming over them, he grimaced down at the two competitors. ‘You, Scarface, should know better than to wager on the bones with a man who’s had all morning to practise. And you, Sanga, should know better than to be caught wagering when there are officers about. The only way this could be any worse for you would be if Morban had already come by and fleeced you both.’ He put out his hand and dropped the knuckle bones onto the ground between them. ‘Reclaim your stakes, soldiers, and be grateful I’m not making you donate them to the burial club. And away with you, all except you two; you need to be carrying this damaged soldier back to his bed. Don’t wake the centurion, or the two days of extra duties you’ve both just earned will miraculously turn into four.’

The two centurions watched as Sanga’s mates carried him back into the hospital, Dubnus smiling widely while Qadir scowled back into their indignant glances.

‘Well done, brother.’ Dubnus slapped his colleague on the shoulder. ‘Word will get around quickly enough, and those men who were minded to test your stomach for the centurionate will wind their necks back in. But what was it Marcus wrote on the tablet for you?’

The Hamian raised an eyebrow, deciding to put another marker down as to his changed status.

‘Not that it’s any business of yours, colleague…’ He allowed the silence to stretch for a moment before continuing. ‘He wrote “Make it yours.”’

Dubnus nodded, a slight smile on his face as he absorbed both Marcus’s advice to his deputy and the manner in which Qadir had swiftly re-established their relationship.

‘Good advice. Come on, then, Centurion, let’s go and give Uncle Sextus the report he’s waiting for.’

Later that day, with the evening sun slipping towards the horizon, the first spear went to brief Scaurus on the two cohorts’ condition, and the information that Dubnus and Qadir had elicited from Marcus. He walked up and down the room as he spoke, coming to his conclusion with a sour face.

‘So pretty much all Corvus was able to tell us was that Obduro is physically nondescript, that he wears a mask at all times unless he’s alone or with a very few trusted men, that he’s got a heavily fortified camp somewhere in the forest, and that Centurion Corvus is predictably burning with the urge to find him and send him to meet his ancestors. In short, nothing we didn’t already know or couldn’t have guessed. He might remember more when he recovers from his whack on the jaw, but until then it’s all he can give us. He did ask to see you when you have a moment, by the way.’

He looked round at Scaurus, who was sitting in a chair and staring up at a copy of Prefect Caninus’s map of the land around the city. After a moment the tribune shook his head and stood up, keeping his eyes on the map.

‘You missed out a point in your summary. Centurion Corvus confirms that our opponent seems to harbour a deep-seated loathing for our colleague the prefect. And two questions spring to mind with the reaffirmation of that admittedly old news. First, why should a bandit chieftain be so fixated on a relatively minor official like Caninus, especially if he’s apparently so ineffective as to attract the man’s derision? And if that’s really the case, how have their paths crossed? What is it that the prefect isn’t telling us?’

Frontinius shrugged, shaking his head in disinterest.

‘I’ll leave the intelligence work to you, Tribune; my interests are purely military, and right now that means getting our cohorts ready to go out there again. I’ve got a century’s worth of soldiers whose boots have fallen to pieces, and more than a few men missing shields because other soldiers seem to have thought it might be funny to throw their boards onto the fires when they weren’t looking, although of course nobody actually saw anyone else actually perpetrate the crime. I’ve even got a centurion from the Second Cohort with a mild case of frostbite. The idiot decided to march out without his socks on.’

Scaurus turned and gave his first spear a hard smile.

‘Then you’d better send out some officers and make the city’s tradesmen happy, hadn’t you? I want both cohorts fully combat-effective immediately. Starting tomorrow we’ll be sending patrols up and down the main road, and generally getting back up onto our feet and into Obduro’s face. Doubtless the men are all still rolling their eyes and muttering to each other at the way his goddess sent snow to frustrate us, and I’ll not give them time to brood on that thought. Every grain convoy from the west will have to have an escort once it’s a day’s march out from the city, and Decurion Silus and his mounted scouts are going to have their work cut out making sure that Obduro doesn’t get his men out of the forest unobserved. And you’d better send some men south, with ropes, to rip out enough of that bridge to make it useless for any further attempts to cross the Mosa. The legion cohort can make damned sure that Procurator Albanus’s grain store stays secure, and garrison the city while we invest some boot leather in preventing Obduro’s men from taking one single bag of grain more from the convoys. I’ll have his deserting Treveri scum eating acorns by the time autumn’s here, and then we’ll see just how their goddess decides to feed them. Carry on, First Spear, I’m going to pay a visit to Centurion Corvus as requested. Who knows, he might have remembered something that will help us?’