The Scourge of Thracia

Chapter 11

It was a clear, crisp mid-morning, and the men of the XI Claudia milled around the grounds of the now-deserted villa. Pavo stoked the campfire outside the villa then took his pot of porridge and ate immediately, welcoming the fierce heat. The tense wait through the night had left him ravenous. His meal finished, he took a long pull on his skin of soured wine and sighed deeply. The Goths had left for the east that morning at dawn just as the angry Gothic warrior and his comrades had discussed. Pavo and Sura had unlocked and left the treasure vault only when they heard the voices of the XI Claudia, and in particular those of Gallus and Dexion, demanding that the estate be searched for their comrades.

‘I was sure you were dead,’ Dexion said, his face still fixed with a giddy smile, his meal untouched as he beheld Pavo. Then he shot Gallus an apologetic look. ‘Though I should have had more faith, I suppose.’

‘Nah,’ Quadratus cut in, stopping only to belch through flapping lips. ‘These two have a knack for avoiding the edge of a blade.’

‘And that one,’ Zosimus added, scratching roughly at his scalp with his porridge-caked spoon then jabbing it towards Sura who was pouring cups of the harvested wine for everyone, ‘is a bloody lunatic, which somehow seems to help.’

Sura took this as a compliment and flashed a grin. ‘Helped each of us take a healthy purse of gold,’ he reasoned, patting his own takings from Vergilius’ strong-room.

‘So it seems that our mission to Trajan’s Gate will be a quiet one?’ Dexion added, clasping his hands and nodding as if envisioning the journey ahead.

‘If what we heard was right, then perhaps it will be. As long as Fritigern chooses to concentrate his horde in central Thracia,’ Pavo shrugged.

In just a few hours they would be at the strategic corridor that linked the Eastern and Western Empires. While the Goths seemed set to make some permanent camp in the heart of Thracia, a good hundred miles to the east, the XI Claudia would merely have to reinforce Geridus’ garrison at Trajan’s Gate until Gratian’s forces arrived. Pavo imagined the Western Emperor’s great army preparing to move eastwards like a colossal silver creature, and Emperor Valens’ Eastern Praesental Army on the Persian frontier likewise readying to board fleets of triremes and to march across Anatolia to come to Thracia. Soon, surely, the Gothic War would be over.

‘By spring, these lands might be at peace again,’ Dexion said quietly, as if reading his thoughts.

Pavo allowed himself to consider the prospect, until a stiff breeze picked up, and he saw scudding grey clouds on the eastern horizon, coming west. He noticed Gallus standing, eyes darting distrustfully to east and west, his plume and cloak lifting and whipping in the wind. ‘If a peaceful spring comes, then I will welcome it. Until then, I’ll keep my spatha and shield close to hand.’

Reiks Farnobius lay flat in his saddle and heeled his silver stallion onwards into a gallop, leaping over the toppled wagons and through black smoke and licking flames. Screams rang out all around him, but fewer and fewer with every passing heartbeat, every hissing Hun arrow, and every driving Gothic spear. He flexed his arm and held his axe out like a harvester’s scythe, eyes trained on the fleeing Roman auxiliary before him, feeling the howling wind rush over his bronze-winged helm. The Roman sped forward like a startled hare, shooting glances back over his shoulder as Farnobius closed in. The auxiliary threw down his battered iron helm in the vain hope that it would aid his escape. Farnobius grinned at this. ‘And now my blade will not be dulled,’ he growled as he swept the axe into the back of the auxiliary’s skull. A chunk of the man’s head came away, leaving a gaping, pinkish-grey segment like a once-bitten apple. Blood sprayed from the man’s ruined head and he fell flat on his face like a discarded child’s toy. All around lay similarly ruined, mail-shirted corpses and imperial mounts, dead in the bloody mire of broken wagons.

Farnobius reined his mount in, bringing the beast rearing up. All around him, his Taifali and Goths cried out in victory. As if not to be outdone, his small contingent of Huns cheered even louder.

‘Far-no-bi-us! Far-no-bi-us! Far-no-bi-us!’

He walked his mount round to face them, picking his way over the shattered remains of the Roman supply train that had dared to cross these plains between walled settlements and now lay as a black and crimson stain on the flatlands. He dug the edge of his axe down into the pile of spilled barley and wheat grain and flicked it up. ‘Food for our bellies and not the Romans!’ he roared as the grain rained down again. Though in his heart, he heard the echoing voice of the long-dead boy-reiks, Vitheric. In a lilting, harmless tone, it said: do you recall the last meal of barley stew we shared — on the evening before you murdered me? With a snarl, he shook his head then flipped open the lid of a chest with his weapon and knocked it on its side. Coins poured onto the dirt. ‘Your money, not theirs!’ he cried again. But Vitheric’s earnest voice was quick to respond: much of it debased and worthless, only a few of them gold.

A polyglot refrain erupted as his men fell upon the toppled wagons. Some raked through bloodied earth and shoved cleaved limbs aside to get every last coin and to fill their pockets with as much grain as they could carry. They did not yet see that the pickings from these few wagon trains was indeed sparse — too sparse.

Yet never had he felt more alive. Twenty six years of living in Alatheus and Saphrax’s shadow, a shadow blown away by his courageous break from Fritigern’s camp, two days ago. He cast his gaze over his army. Just over four thousand men — Egil and Humbert’s two thousand spearmen and his two thousand Taifali riders along with just over a hundred Huns. More, they were well-fed and encouraged men, not like the wretches who hesitated back in Fritigern’s camp.

But they will grow hungry for more gold soon enough, the dead child’s voice reiterated.

‘Gold,’ he muttered to himself, his lips barely moving. ‘Always gold,’ he affirmed, his thoughts turning to tales he had heard of the Romans’ source of the precious metal, ‘and I shall give them gold.’ He wheeled his stallion round and addressed his army. ‘Tomorrow, we will ride south. There, I promise you plunder as never before!’

The men erupted in a cheer at this, the Huns wheeling their mounts in celebration and throwing praise to Tengri, their sky god. The Taifali and Goths chanted to Wodin and the plain reverberated to the baritone chorus.

He swept his axe overhead, bringing it down to point them south. Like a brood of raptors, they swirled round to ride and march in his wake.

Having left the ruined villa and marched all day, the XI Claudia stopped at dusk and made camp on a defensible rocky plateau just a half-day’s march from Trajan’s Gate. Pavo volunteered for sentry duty at the plateau-edge and immediately wished he had not, for his eyelids grew heavy and his thoughts spiralled off towards sleep. He bit his lower lip to stave off the fatigue, but it was not enough. A moment later, his head nodded forward and his mind swam in an ocean of dreams. Then, from nowhere, one image rushed at him like a shark rising from the inky depths: the shadowy figure watching him in the slave market. This time it was not a mere sliver of blackness; it had grown and now it writhed. The eyes pierced through time and the ethereal matter of dreams and pinned Pavo. Barely a heartbeat after nodding off, he was awake. Wide awake. Why had this dream not let him be? And each time the dream recurred, the dark figure appeared more ominous, the black shade swirling into being from glowering eyes and a chill smile. The coolness of the night seemed to multiply with these thoughts. Pavo shook his head and forced a quiet chuckle to himself as if to make fun of the dream. . when something moved, right behind him.

He swung to see a tall, dark shadow, looming over him.

‘Mithras!’ he gasped, his spatha half drawn when a shaft of moonlight revealed Gallus’ gaunt features. He slid his spatha back into its scabbard. ‘Bless Luna for her light else I might not have stopped, sir.’

‘Aye, you were trained well, Optio. One of the last of our kind,’ Gallus said, his breath clouding in the chill.

Pavo noticed the melancholy in the tribunus’ eyes and saw how he waited there. This was no passing check on his sentries. He wondered if, like those few, fleeting moments in the past, Gallus wanted to speak to him. Not as a legionary, but as a man. Yet broaching this possibility with Gallus was like finding a missing link in a mail vest. So he stuck to protocol. ‘Nothing’s moved out there, sir,’ he said dutifully. ‘Not a thing.’

‘I know, I’ve been watching,’ he replied. ‘Sleep and I are at loggerheads tonight, it would seem.’

And most nights, Pavo thought. Gallus was a taciturn man outside his duties as a tribunus, but few who had served in the legion had missed his plaintive night-cries for his dead family. He wondered if that was to be his own fate; to mourn Felicia and Father and all those others for eternity.

‘In any case, duty sometimes blunts the sharp edge of a man’s troubles,’ Gallus said, then looked briefly unsure of himself. ‘And perhaps. . talking too.’

Pavo’s senses sharpened. The tribunus’ steely carapace was coming down.

‘News of Felicia’s death saddened me,’ Gallus continued. ‘I have been close enough to Dexion in these last days to see how much it has hurt him, so I can only wonder at the depth of your grief.’

Pavo frowned, then it all became clear: the tribunus was not seeking a sympathetic ear, no, Gallus had come to console him. He shook his head stiffly. ‘In battle, you come to expect loss, and what happened at the Great North-’ he stopped as grief surged from his breast. It seemed to rake across his heart and tighten his throat as he saw the image of her body again. He fought it back, the dark voice in his head hissing once more. You do not deserve to grieve.

‘I just wanted you to know that I. . I understand.’ Gallus seemed to have difficulty saying these words. ‘You did not deserve such a blow, lad. Not after all that happened in Persia.’

Pavo dropped and shook his head, his gaze searching the dirt around his feet. ‘I have lived one vision a thousand times in these last few days, sir. If I had just reached her sooner, before Farnobius. . she would be with me now. I failed her, just as I failed to save Father.’ He halted, determined not to succumb to the stinging tears gathering behind his eyes.

‘That Fritigern’s horde, Farnobius and all, fell upon the Great Northern Camp was not your doing,’ Gallus countered abruptly. ‘You did all you could to stop that happening. You marched into the Shipka Pass and right into the heart of the Gothic camp to save the embassy. Then, when the pass fell and the Goths came to the Tonsus, you were one of the few who took to the river’s edge, took the blows of the Gothic blades and stood firm for as long as you could. Had you not, then many more would have died.’

Pavo nodded solemnly, his eyes failing to meet Gallus’ demanding glare.

‘But those merits are like a pale light for you right now, are they not?’ Gallus guessed.

Pavo took a deep breath. ‘At Vergilius’ villa yesterday, there was a dead girl. A slave. She didn’t look much like Felicia but,’ he stopped, shaking his head, ‘in some strange way I wanted to believe that she did — that it was her.’ He sighed recalling the numbness as he had laid the girl in her grave. ‘Sura and I buried her. I whispered to her as we did so. I don’t know why, for I never knew her nor her me, but I spoke to her as if she was Felicia; the final words I should have shared with her. I should have been there, before Farnobius cut her down. . ’ he reiterated.

Gallus’ brow knitted into deep ruts. ‘The web of regret is a tangled one, lad. A dark creature lurks in there. It feeds on your regrets, devours your self-pity with relish. If you submit to it, it will consume you.’

‘But I feel something inside me. It is like fiery talons, growing, lashing at my insides.’

Gallus beheld him with a keen eye, as if Pavo had just spoken of a secret only he knew. ‘Anger. And rightly so,’ he said gently. ‘It must be spent, but it is a mistake to turn it upon yourself.’

Pavo stared through the ground before him. ‘Then I shall turn it on him. Farnobius,’ he muttered, wondering if the giant even knew what a wound one swipe of the huge axe had bestowed. His nose wrinkled and his fingers tightened into fists. ‘Farnobius,’ he repeated, this time as a hiss. Then he imagined the innumerable Gothic horde and the giant in their midst. His mind’s eye played a cruel trick then, pitching the scattered few remnants of the Thracian legions against such might. His shoulders sagged. ‘Yet it seems that some are beyond reach?’

Silence. Pavo looked up, seeing Gallus’ stiff glower searching the western night sky.

‘No man is beyond reach,’ the tribunus whispered at last.

‘Sir?’

Gallus stirred from his trance, his eyes meeting Pavo’s. There, Pavo saw his own reflection, his expression matching Gallus’. There was a lasting silence before the Tribunus spoke.

‘You seek justice from an impossible place? To enter the spider’s maw and pierce its black heart? That is a dark path, Pavo, and one I never wished you to tread. But I know its twists and turns only too well.’

Pavo gazed at the tribunus, and it all fell into place: Gallus’ slain family, the Speculatores’ pursuit of the tribunus’ blood. The man’s obsession with the Western Emperor’s journey to the east. ‘It was the Speculatores?’

Gallus seemed frozen for a moment at the mention of the word.

‘They took your family from you. They are the black heart you seek?’

Gallus’ eyes returned to scouring the western night sky. . finally he nodded. ‘You would have gladly died to save Felicia, wouldn’t you?’ he said softly.

Pavo accepted the change of tack and knew to press no further. ‘Father lived and died as a soldier, gave his life to save me in the end and took his enemies with him, so there is some solace in that. But Felicia? She had no place on the end of a blade. How can I ever forget what happened to her, sir?’

‘You can’t. You shouldn’t,’ Gallus sighed. ‘But remember her for what she was to you, not for how it ended. I. . only wish I could live by that mantra.’

Pavo nodded, then noticed Gallus’ hand edging towards his purse, but, as if scolded by a silent wraith, he retracted it. In the purse, Pavo knew, was the tribunus’ idol of Mithras. A worn piece depicting the god of the legions’ birth from rock. Gallus would oft be seen clutching the piece, sometimes on the march, sometimes as he perched like a crow on a fort wall, watching over his training ranks, sometimes even in the moments before battle, Pavo had seen him clasp the piece. But ever since they had set off from Constantinople, he realised, he had not seen the idol in the tribunus’ hands. ‘Does Mithras ease the pain?’

Gallus laughed at this. It was an odd sound and one Pavo had never heard before. A laugh that carried not a hint of mirth. ‘Even Mithras is powerless to soothe the blight that is loss. He and I understand this now.’

‘Then what does it take?’ Pavo asked.

Gallus gave him a knowing, almost surprised look. ‘Why, it is just as Carbo told me with his last breaths in Persia. It is just as you told me on the road home from that burning land.’ He clenched and shook a fist as if recalling the moment. ‘Face the past, face the nightmares,’ he punched the fist into his palm. ‘Strike them down!’