The Wolf's gold

1

Dacia, September, AD 183

‘You must avenge us, my son. The simple fact of your survival is not a sufficient response to the evil that festers at the heart of the empire, or to the gross indignities to which your mother and sisters were submitted before their deaths.’

Senator Appius Valerius Aquila shifted his seat with an expression of discomfort, clearly troubled by the painful joints that had beset him in the months before his son had left Rome for Britannia. In the shadows behind him his wife and daughters stood in silence, their partially visible faces free of any expression, and in the room’s darkest recess Marcus wondered if he could see his younger brother standing in equal immobility, the child’s features almost entirely lost in the gloom.

‘Father, I cannot see-’

The old man raised an eyebrow, his face taking on that lofty patrician demeanour that his son had always found so forbidding.

‘You cannot see a way to take revenge for our deaths, Marcus? You have a wife and son now, and responsibilities to the men under your command. You have discarded the name Valerius Aquila, and now live under the assumed name of Tribulus Corvus to avoid association with a family of traitors. A new life has opened itself to you, a life for which you are well skilled. And yet. .’

Marcus swallowed nervously, unable to move a muscle under his father’s scrutiny.

‘And yet?’

‘And yet, my son, all that you are now has only come about as the result of what I made you. I took you as a baby, when my friend Gaius Calidius Sollemnis was unable to care for you.’

Marcus found Legatus Sollemnis’s sword in his hand, its gold-eagle-head pommel gleaming faintly in the light of the single lamp that was struggling for life while the darkness pressed in all around. He spoke quickly, almost absurdly eager for some approval from the man who had raised him to adulthood.

‘Father, I took revenge for the legatus after his betrayal by the praetorian prefect’s son Titus. I pursued his murderer Calgus to the edge of the empire and beyond. I crippled him and left him for the wolves.’

‘It was simple circumstance which gave you the gift of revenge for your birth father, my son. Retribution for the destruction of your true family cannot depend on Fortuna’s whims. You must travel to the heart of the empire, and hunt down every man that took any part in our murder. Until you do this you will never be able to openly raise my grandson under our proud name of Valerius Aquila. Do you wish for him to grow to adulthood under an assumed name? But worse than that stain on our honour, you will be forever at the mercy of the conscience that I worked so hard to instil in you while you were still young. Think back, Marcus, past the skill at arms I had the gladiator and the soldier pummel into you until you were a match for either of them with sword or fist. Do you not remember our discussions on the subjects of ethics and philosophy?’

Marcus nodded, reaching for the deeply buried memory of the challenging conversations in which he had for a long time felt more an audience than a participant, as the old man had outlined his own beliefs and values.

‘Yes.’

‘Then you know only too well that to turn your face from this crime will not stand. Only in Rome will you find the men who must be punished for our deaths.’

The darkness was deepening around his family with stealthy inevitability now, and his brother was utterly lost to view. Even as he stared at his mother with a longing to hear her voice one last time, she too sank back into the gloom, leaving only his father’s near invisible presence on the couch before him.

‘Only in Rome, Marcus. .’

He woke with a start, and Felicia stirred from her sleep alongside him, her voice edged with concern.

‘What is it?’

Marcus put an arm around her, cupping a breast in the way they usually lay before sleep came for them both.

‘It was the dream again. Nothing more. .’

Her body tensed against his.

‘My love. .’

He kissed her ear with a gentle smile.

‘I know. I remember your diagnosis. My sleeping mind has found some way to subvert the control I have established over my emotions, and is using images from my former life to conduct some manner of grieving that I cannot indulge in any other way. Although I expect that a priest would tell me that the dreams are sent by Morpheus at the behest of Mithras, who would have me follow a soldier’s path to take my revenge.’

She snorted softly into the room’s darkness and reached over her shoulder to tap his forehead.

‘The problem lurks in here, my love. You must allow yourself to mark the passing of your family in an appropriate manner. Until you do you will continue to be haunted by these ghosts from your previous life, the life you have not yet fully allowed to die.’

He kissed her neck, squeezing his body against her back.

‘I know. I will, when the time is right. .’ He cupped the other breast, rubbing his fingers gently across her nipples. ‘And now, given that the baby is still asleep. .’

Later, as they lay together listening to the sounds of the camp coming to life, he held her tightly and mused inwardly upon the dream, just as he had done before several other dawns along the length of the empire’s northern frontier.

‘Mark the passing of my family in an appropriate manner? Never was a truer word spoken, my love. But the time and place is not here and now, it will be at some time in the future which is not yet clear to me. But the time will come, of that I am quite sure. And the place?’ His father’s words from the dream echoed in his mind. ‘Only in Rome. .’

‘So we’ve marched all this way to protect a fucking mountain?’ The Fifth Century’s standard bearer glanced around at the peaks to either side of the road and spat in front of his boots. ‘Gods below, but we attract every shitty job going, don’t we? Got a cold, wet quarry that needs watching in case some stray barbarians fancy carrying off the stone? Just send the bloody Tungrians, they’re stupid enough to do anything they’re told!’

He shook his head, changing hands on his standard’s shaft.

‘We can only hope they’ve got a decent whorehouse up there, or we’ll have come all this way to no purpose whatsoever. Mind you. .’ Shaking his head ruefully, he glanced back at his audience, the column of men marching four abreast behind him. ‘The sort of woman who’s made it this far into the mountains isn’t likely to be big on the softer side of the profession. And I really hate it when the mattress thrasher sucking my cock can tickle my balls with her beard.’

Marcus shook his head at his standard bearer’s diatribe as he marched up the road alongside the stocky veteran, resolving as ever not to rise to the older man’s habitual bitter complaint at any hint of hardship. Eighteen months as Morban’s centurion had taught him that while the twenty-five-year veteran could be silenced for a moment or two, he rarely relinquished the subject of his ire for very long. One of the soldiers slogging along in the ranks behind them raised his voice from the safe anonymity of the men around him to further provoke the standard bearer.

‘There’ll be no proper beer neither, eh Morban?’

Catching Marcus’s glare the standard bearer wisely held back his reply, tipping his head to listen for the sound he expected and softly counting down as he waited.

‘Five, four, three, two-’

An incensed bellow from behind them made both men start, despite the fact they had both been expecting it. Marcus exchanged a glance with Morban as Quintus, his chosen man, unleashed a tirade of irritated abuse in the general direction of the anonymous soldier.

‘I’ve a bloody good idea which one of you apes opened his mouth just then, and when I find out exactly who it was you’ll be wishin’ you never joined up! I’ll have you on extra duties for so long your dick will have withered away before you get to do anything better with it than play jerk the gherkin! I’ll break my fuckin’ pole on your back, and then I’ll-’

‘Call for another one, will you Quintus?’

The standard bearer’s voice was quiet enough that only Marcus heard him, and the chosen man bellowed his challenge into the cold mountain air.

‘I’ll fuckin’ call for another one! That’s what I’ll do!’

The standard bearer smirked at his officer.

‘That’s five times today. Morban wins again.’

Ignoring his centurion’s raised eyebrow, he cleared his throat and put an end to his colleague’s tirade by roaring out the first line of a marching song that had been sung a lot over the previous few weeks, as the Tungrian cohorts had marched the length of the empire’s northern frontier along the Rhenus and Danubius rivers.

‘I got five by selling my cloak. .’

He paused momentarily to allow the century’s soldiers to join in, drowning out their chosen man’s indignant voice as they belted out the song in fine style.

‘. . five more by selling my spear,

the final five by selling my shield,

that’s fifteen fucks, my dear!’

He winked at his centurion as the men behind them drew breath for the song’s chorus, and Marcus was unable to resist a wry smile in return. His standard bearer and chosen man were at daggers drawn for most of the time, and Morban took any and every opportunity to get the advantage in their uneasy relationship.

‘Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen, twelve,

eleven fucks, my dear,

and when we get to ten fucks,

then I’m stopping for a beer!’

Marcus stopped marching and stepped off the road, watching the passing soldiers with his hands on the hilts of the swords that had long since earned him the nickname ‘Two Knives’. The cohort’s centuries ground wearily past him up the long road, whose course twisted and undulated with the valley’s floor as it climbed towards the mist-covered peaks that were their objective for the day.

‘Having fun yet, young ’un?’

Nodding in reply to his colleague Otho’s greeting, and laughing at the wink that creased the older man’s seamed and battered face as the cohort’s Seventh Century marched past, Marcus stretched his back as he looked down the column’s length. Taking a moment to enjoy the sun’s warmth on his face, he pushed his shoulders back and rotated his head to work out some of the stiffness in his neck. His body, already wiry with corded muscle from the effort of routinely carrying fifty pounds of weapons and armour on his back day after day, had been exercised to the point of perfection by three months on the long road from Fortress Bonna in Germania Inferior. He looked around him at the towering hills on every side of the road’s long straight ribbon, shading his brown eyes against the afternoon sun with a long-fingered hand and musing on the mountainous land around them for a long moment before his reverie was interrupted.

‘Still having problems with dear old Quintus are you then? I could hear him shouting from here, and we’ve reached that point in the day when even the hardest of chosen men are usually hanging from their chinstraps with the rest of us.’

He started walking again as the Eighth Century’s centurion passed him, shaking his head ruefully at his friend’s question.

‘What do you think, Dubnus? Mithras knows you were hard enough when you were my chosen man back in Britannia, but you were always fair enough with the men. Yes, you were as harsh with them as you had to be when they needed it, but even you knew when to let them have a little slack in their collars.’

The big man acknowledged the point with a nod, scratching at the skin beneath his heavy beard and flicking sweat from his fingers.

‘Whereas Quintus. .’

‘Never seems to give them a moment’s grace. Every tiny misdemeanour, all the usual silly little things that soldiers do, it all has him screaming at them as if they’re recruits rather than battle-hardened soldiers. Quite how Julius used to put up with it baffles me.’

His friend gave him a sideways glance.

‘Julius never had any problem with it, Marcus. He didn’t get the nickname “Latrine” without good reason, he really can be full of shit when he thinks it’s necessary. .’ He paused significantly. ‘And he thinks it’s necessary most of the time. Not that I don’t love him like a brother, but when I was his chosen man, before I was set to turning you from a snot-nosed youngster into a half-decent centurion, he regularly used to tell me I wasn’t hard enough on his men. So when I was transferred to command your old century last year he took his chance and appointed Quintus for the job.’

Marcus nodded unhappily.

‘And now I have to deal with the consequences. I can’t demote the man, not without good reason. .’

‘Which you can be sure he’ll never give you. He may be a bit of an arsehole, but to be fair he is all soldier.’

‘And I probably can’t persuade him to be any more lenient.’

Dubnus nodded again.

‘You’re more likely to persuade Morban to stop gambling. Or drinking. Or whor-’

‘Yes. So I’ll just have to put up with it, I suppose.’ Marcus sighed, looking up the column’s line at the peaks rising before them. ‘At least this incessant marching is coming to an end, if only for a few days.’

Dubnus snorted.

‘Yes, but at the price of being perched on top of a mountain with only a bunch of miners and goats for company. That, and any women who’ve made their way up here in search of either gold or marriage. Although they’re likely to be about as good looking as the goats.’

His friend smiled.

‘Morban was telling me as much only a moment ago. I’m going to drop down the column and see how Qadir’s treating my old century.’

Dubnus laughed.

‘In that case you can expect to be getting the cow’s eyes from Scarface. I hear he’s still telling anyone stupid enough to listen to him quacking on about it just how wrong it was that you didn’t take a few picked men with you when Julius put you in charge of the Fifth Century. A few picked men including him and his mate Sanga, of course.’

Marcus shrugged.

‘When Julius appointed me to lead his old century he made it clear that I wasn’t to try stripping the good men out of the Ninth. I was lucky to take my standard bearer with me, although that might be a strange new definition of the word ‘lucky’. Julius told me that there wasn’t any need to bring anyone else with me, since I was inheriting “the best bloody century in the cohort”. He also mentioned that “the First Spear wouldn’t have liked it” if I were to even consider moving men between centuries.’

Dubnus pursed his lips.

‘Yes, well I wish he’d stop invoking his predecessor’s name whenever he wants to justify something. “Don’t allow your men to slack off the march pace, the First Spear wouldn’t have liked it.”’

Marcus grinned back at him, surprised to find himself appreciating his friend’s humour given the trauma of their former senior centurion’s recent death in Germania.

‘Indeed. “Don’t drink too much of that red, the First Spear wouldn’t have liked it.”’

Dubnus smirked, miming a cup at his lips.

‘When we all know very well that Sextus Frontinius would have been guzzling it just as fast as the rest of us.’

Marcus sighed.

‘I know he’s just doing his best to keep our chins up, but all the same it’s time to let Uncle Sextus go, I’d say. Anyway, I’m going to see how the Ninth are doing.’

Marcus stepped back off the road again and waited until his former century drew level with him, falling in alongside their centurion with a nod of greeting. The men were good friends, and for a while they shared a companionable silence amid the jingle of equipment and the rattle of hobnailed boots that routinely accompanied them on the march, until the century’s standard caught his eye.

‘That thing’s clearly been polished to within an inch of its life. It must be a shock for the poor thing after so long under Morban’s version of cleaning.’

Qadir nodded solemnly, his reply couched in the cultured terms that had deceived more than one soldier into mistaking him for a soft touch.

‘My standard bearer spent a long time in Morban’s shadow, as you may recall. He seems to enjoying his moment in the sun, so to speak.’

The man in question, a lanky individual who had been Marcus’s trumpeter when he’d commanded the Ninth Century, nodded respectfully to his former centurion, and Marcus found himself smiling back at the man.

‘I’d imagine you’re still missing Morban, eh, Standard Bearer? Who else is going to keep you sharp with a never-ending flow of complaints, insults and dirty stories, or lighten your purse for you whenever it gets too heavy for comfort?’

Qadir nodded with a wry smile.

‘The Ninth Century is certainly a different place without him. Sometimes I find myself missing his continual flow of nonsense and incitement to gambling. .’

‘But the other nine-tenths of the time?’

‘Exactly. Blessed peace, and straightforward soldiering for the most part, only broken by the occasional grumbling every time one of my soldiers catches sight of you in front of the Fifth.’

He raised his voice for the last comment, making sure the men behind could hear him, and Marcus raised an eyebrow in mock surprise.

‘Really? I’d have thought even Scarface would have got over his disappointment at not having to soldier under the tender mercies of my chosen man by now.’

Marching in his usual place a few ranks behind his former and present centurions, the soldier Scarface kept a dignified silence, although he muttered a quiet aside to his mate Sanga once the two men had returned to their conversation about whatever it was that centurions discussed.

‘Cruel, that was. Very cruel.’

Sanga shrugged minutely under the weight of his spears, shield, helmet, mail shirt and pack pole, his head thrown back to suck in the cold mountain air.

‘So perhaps now you’ll be happy to let “Two Knives” take care of his own life, eh, without your having to run round after him all the time?’

Scarface’s gaze remained locked on the back of Marcus’s head.

‘Not right that we shouldn’t be allowed to go with him to the Fifth, not right at all. .’

Sanga shook his head in disgust and fell silent, concentrating on carrying half his own body weight up the road’s unremitting incline while his tent mate grumbled away to himself.

Qadir looked out at the mountains to either side for a moment before speaking again, his face creased in a gentle smile.

‘At least this far from Britannia there’s little danger of anyone having even heard the name Marcus Valerius Aquila. We may not be happy at having been sent east, but at least you’ll be able to stop worrying about any further attempt to apprehend you, eh Centurion Corvus?’

Marcus nodded, his face softening at the thought.

‘It had crossed my mind. Although I’m also forced to conclude that I’m exchanging the chance to be free from pursuit for the likelihood that I’m taking my wife and child into a war. I don’t think we’ve been sent all this way east just to make the numbers up.’ Hearing the heavy thud of hoofs on the road’s grass verge he turned to see a handful of horsemen cantering up the long column of soldiers. ‘And as if to prove me right, it seems that our mounted squadron is about to be allowed off their rope.’

The leading rider reined his horse in alongside the pair, grinning down at them with undisguised glee from beneath his crested decurion’s helmet, whose polished face mask was raised to allow him a full field of view.

‘Greetings brothers! The time has come for the “First Tungrian Horse” to prove its value once more. After weeks of nothing better than plodding along coughing up the dust raised by your flat feet, we are ordered to scout forward up the road as far as the turn for the mine. The tribune suspects that this country may harbour any number of barbarian scouts, and so bids me ride out to give them the opportunity for some practice with their bows. Since I have permission to seek your participation in this perilous mission, purely in order to improve the odds of my survival by providing the enemy with a wider variety of suitable targets, I’ve taken the liberty of saddling your usual mounts for the trip. Will you give both your feet and noses a rest by accompanying us on our ride?’

Marcus looked at Qadir, the Hamian’s response a shrug of feigned disinterest. Looking up at the grinning decurion, the Roman raised an eyebrow.

‘It’s tempting, Silus, although it appears that you’ve saddled that monster Bonehead for me once again, despite your repeated accusations that the poor animal lacks the appropriate discipline for a cavalry horse. And is that the tribune’s man Arminius I can see towards the back of your scouting party, clinging to his horse’s mane as if it were a handle made of iron?’

The big German, mounted on a heavily built animal judged to be the only beast in the cohort’s cavalry detachment capable of carrying his weight without breaking down, scowled at Marcus from the party’s rear.

‘I can hear you, Centurion, and whilst nothing would make me happier than getting down from this animal now and never remounting a horse in all my remaining years, you know the blood debt I owe you. When my master gives these men leave to take you into harm’s way, I have no choice but to accompany them alongside you.’

Silus grimaced, leaning down from his saddle to speak in Marcus’s ear.

‘Between you and I, even that big bugger Colossus is starting to look a bit resentful at having to carry all that weight around. It’s a good thing your man Lugos doesn’t have a hankering to follow you into the shit quite so eagerly, or we’d no horses left standing inside a week. So, will you join us, or are you minded to give your German an excuse to dismount?’

Marcus shrugged up at Silus, holding out a hand.

‘Very well, Decurion, since I have no option but to respect Arminius’s example, I presume you stopped at the medical wagon to pester my wife for my helmet?’

The horseman grinned even wider, raising his left hand from behind his mount’s side to display the masked cavalry helmet Marcus had purchased in Tungrorum for the purposes of deceiving the followers of the bandit leader Obduro, much to Felicia’s disgust when she had discovered the price he’d paid for its fine workmanship. The Roman took off his centurion’s helmet and passed it to Qadir with a wink.

‘Can you think of a soldier who might be sufficiently careful to be entrusted with this? I’ll take his shield and one of his spears in return.’

The Hamian nodded, dropping back a few ranks and handing the crested helmet to the soldier Scarface, taking one of his spears and helping him to pull the shield from its place strapped to his back.

‘There you go, soldier, you’re trusted with the centurion’s helmet until he comes back from scouting with the cavalry.’

Scarface took the additional burden with a solemn nod, ignoring the guffaws of the men around him, and watched as Marcus and Qadir mounted the horses Silus had saddled for them and rode away up the road’s gentle slope.

‘Perhaps carrying that lump of iron for the next few hours will teach you to wind your bloody neck in. .’ Sanga fell silent when he realised that his comrade wasn’t listening to a word he was saying, but staring down at the helmet with an expression of pride. ‘And then again perhaps not. .’

The horsemen rode forward for a mile or so on the road’s hard surface, their horses’ hoofs clattering loudly in the silence that hung over the wooded hills to either side. Silus looked back down the road to be sure they were sufficiently well ahead of the marching column of infantrymen, and then waved a hand at the wooded slopes.

‘Time to get off the road and make a bit less noise, gentlemen, we’re sticking out like tits on a bull as it is. Keep your eyes and ears open for anything out of the ordinary.’

The horsemen separated into two parties, each half a dozen strong, and rode their horses onto the strips of cleared ground on either side of the road before reining them in to a walk so that their hoofs would be almost silent in the long grass. Qadir steered his beast alongside Marcus’s big grey, the graceful chestnut mare’s finely drawn lines a stark contrast to the warhorse, while Arminius’s mount fell in behind them at the German’s urging. The three men talked quietly as the patrol ghosted forward up the road’s margins, until Arminius suddenly frowned and wrinkled his nose.

‘Do you smell that?’

Marcus inhaled deeply, discerning the very slightest edge of a familiar aroma on the air.

‘Woodsmoke. And burning fat.’

Qadir nodded, waving a hand to Silus and putting a finger to his nose as Marcus bent to pull his shield from the grey’s flank. As the decurion nodded his understanding an arrow flicked out of the trees fifty paces to their front, snapping past the Roman’s head with a whistle of flight feathers. Flicking down the helmet’s polished face mask he spurred the grey into action, dropping his spear from the vertical carrying position to point forward, knowing that the sight of its long blade would be enough to spark the big horse’s customary berserk charge. A second arrow flew from the trees, its flight a blur of motion that ended with a clang as the missile’s iron head glanced from his facemask’s many-layered protection. The impact’s force knocked his head to one side, momentarily blurring his vision. Raising the shield across his body the Roman rose in the saddle by tensing his thigh muscles against the grey’s flanks, hefting the spear in readiness to throw. The hidden bowman loosed another shot, aiming for horse rather than rider this time, and Marcus felt the beast shudder with the blow, but the animal’s pace was unaffected as it thundered towards the archer’s hiding place. Rising to run rather than stand his ground for a final shot, the enemy scout presented Marcus with a fleeting target as the grey hammered past the spot from which the tribesman had watched the horsemen approach, but his hurled spear flew past the fleeing archer with a venomous power born of his anger at his horse’s wound and missed by an arm’s length.

Pulling the grey up he raised a leg over the saddle’s horns to slide from the horse’s back, landing on his feet and drawing hislong sword as he strode furiously into the trees behind his raised shield, acutely aware that the layered board’s protection was largely illusory against a bow at such short range. In front of him the scout was still dodging through the trees, but seeming to stagger slightly as he ran, one side of his body sagging as if he were a puppet with a string missing. He abruptly stopped running, staggering to a halt and standing still for a moment, swaying on his feet, one hand clenching and unclenching around the shaft of an arrow that dangled unnoticed at his side. Marcus stepped in close, his eyes narrowed in anticipation of a further ambush, raising the long bladed spatha to make the easy kill even as he wondered at such suicidal behaviour. The enemy scout turned, his feet dragging through the fallen pine needles like a sleepwalker’s, and the look on his face stayed the Roman’s hand as he stared with horrified fascination. Momentarily considering the masked centurion before him with empty, glassy eyes, his mouth hanging open to release a thin stream of bloody spittle, the barbarian slowly raised the arrow he was holding until it was in front of his face and emitted a high pitched moan of distress. Marcus watched in wonder as he realised that his intended victim’s legs were shaking hard enough to make his whole body shudder uncontrollably. With a long groaning exhalation of his fear and despair, the archer toppled backward onto the forest’s needle-strewn floor and lay twitching, soiling his breeches as he shook spasmodically.

Bending to examine the seemingly helpless man more closely, the young centurion held his sword ready to strike as he pushed the barbarian onto his back with a booted foot. The scout’s eyes were pinned wide, their pupils shrunk to the size of tiny dots as he stared sightlessly up at the Roman, and the arrow spilled from his nerveless hand, the shaft’s last fingernail length painted a deep and ruddy red. Bending closer to look at something that caught his eye on the man’s arm, Marcus heard the faintest of noises, the creak of a bow being drawn back, and used the split second’s warning to thrust his shield forward toward the tiny fragment of sound. An arrow slammed into the board with enough power to punch clean through the layers of wood and linen, only stopping when the heavy iron head impacted on his mail shirt’s iron rings with a hard rap. A powerful stench of something rotting filled Marcus’s nostrils, and he rolled away from the spot into the shelter of a tree, calling out to Silus: ‘There’s another one here! Flank him!’

The Tungrian troopers advanced into the trees to either side, shouting to each other as they sought to trap the second archer in an enveloping movement, but in a scatter of twigs the man was up and running to Marcus’s right faster than the dismounted Tungrians could follow. As the Roman watched through the trees, his ambusher vaulted onto a waiting horse and bolted for the road, looking to make his escape before the Tungrians could remount. Pushing up the cavalry helmet’s facemask and fighting his way back out of the undergrowth, Marcus almost blundered into Qadir as the Hamian coolly nocked an arrow to his heavy framed hunting bow and pulled the missile back until its flight feathers were level with his ear. Qadir waited patiently as the scout’s horse crashed through the undergrowth towards the road, allowing a slow exhalation of breath to trickle from his lips as he readied himself for the shot. Bursting from the trees, the rider whipped his mount to a gallop, crouching low over the animal’s neck to present a smaller target, and for a moment Marcus wondered if his friend might hold back the shot for fear of hitting the horse. Qadir leaned forward a fraction, his eyes narrowing in concentration, then loosed the arrow and lowered the weapon, making no attempt to reach for another. Struck cleanly in the square of his back the barbarian scout arched convulsively, toppling over his horse’s hindquarters and smashing down hard onto the road’s cobbled surface.

Walking forward with his shield raised against any further attempt at ambush, his nose wrinkling at the fetid smell from the bone arrowhead still poking through a long split in the wooden board, Marcus watched the trees to either side warily. Reaching the fallen rider he prodded the man’s arm with a toe, sliding it away from the long knife sheathed on the man’s belt.

‘No need. He’s as good as dead.’ Glancing up, he found Silus approaching with a look of disgust. ‘It’s a shame. I’d like to have shared a few quiet moments with him to discuss this. .’

The decurion reached out and broke the shaft of the arrow stuck through Marcus’s shield, pulling out the barbed head and sniffing at it. Pulling a face, he held the offending missile at arm’s length and called for an empty feed sack.

‘Poisoned?’

The cavalryman nodded grimly at Marcus’s question, wrapping the arrowhead in several layers of sacking before snapping it from the shaft and knotting the little package closed.

‘Here, it’ll be a souvenir for you. Just don’t cut yourself with it.’ He kicked the dying man hard in the head, his face white with anger. ‘No, let the fucker lie here and die as slowly as he likes. And if you’ve got any problem with that, you’d better go back and see the state your horse is in.’

Marcus started guiltily and hurried back to where the big grey lay rigid on the verge with its legs sticking stiffly out from its body, trembling violently and rolling its eyes in terror while Arminius and Qadir stood over it, turning to greet Marcus with shaking heads. A single arrow protruded from the horse’s right shoulder, its shaft painted the same deep red as the one in the dying archer’s open hand. A froth of foam was trailing from the animal’s open mouth, every shallow exhalation of breath accompanied by a soft groan as the arrow’s poison tore at the horse’s innards. Shaking his head in sorrow Marcus squatted beside the horse’s head, stroking the long face gently as he pulled a hunting knife from its place on his belt. The blade was almost supernaturally sharp, one of a dozen he had paid a swordsmith to forge and edge with metal from the Damascus steel sword he’d taken from the bandit Obduro in Tungrorum. To his brother officers’ great delight he had given them all one of the resulting blades, although whether he had managed to neutralise the evil he had sensed in the sword from his first touch of its hilt by doing so, or simply distributed it more widely, he was unable to tell. Tracing a hand down the horse’s throat he put the knife to the beast’s sweat-slickened neck and made a single fast cut, opening the veins hidden beneath the twitching flesh and staring down with a sad smile as a stream of hot blood poured out onto the ground.

‘Farewell, Bonehead. You were a good mount.’

Waiting until the horse’s eyes closed he stood, wiping and sheathing the knife with a regretful sigh.

‘Properly done, brother. We’ll make a cavalryman of you yet.’ Silus turned away from the dead animal, shaking his head at the waiting troopers standing around him. ‘We won’t be eating horse tonight, not unless you lot want to risk meat with enough poison in it to knock this big sod over in less than a hundred heartbeats.’

Marcus walked into the trees and found the spot where the first archer was stretched out in his death agonies, cutting his throat with a single expert pass of the knife’s fearsome blade and picking up the quiver of arrows that lay beside him. Bending close to the corpse, he saw that the mark on the man’s arm which had drawn his attention briefly during the fight was a scratch, the skin discoloured around the small wound. He went back to the spot on the road where the scout was slowly expiring under Qadir’s impassive stare.

‘Kill him. He’s not going to give us anything that’s not already obvious from their presence here, and if I’ll do it for a horse then I owe him the same dignity.’ He handed the Hamian the quiver, waving a hand at the dying man before them. ‘You’d better collect his arrows as well. They may come in handy, and I’d rather not leave them lying about here. And watch out for the ones with the red paint, the slightest puncture will kill a man, from the looks of it.’

He walked on up the road’s gentle slope until he reached the place where the dying man’s mount had come to a halt after its rider had toppled from the saddle. The horse was cropping contentedly at the verge’s grass without any apparent concern, and the Roman walked slowly towards it, speaking soft words of reassurance as he advanced with unhurried care until he was within touching distance of the beast. Reaching out slowly and carefully he took hold of the horse’s reins, stroking its flank and blowing in its ear.

‘Here. Give her this.’

Silus tossed the Roman an apple, wrinkled from a long time in the store but still tasty enough, and the horse took it off his palm with an eagerness that had the other horsemen snorting with laughter. Silus whistled at his pay and a half, and the soldier threw him another apple with a resigned look.

‘They think I’m soft on the horses, and in truth they’re right, but how can any man resist that?’ The animal was nudging at Marcus with its snout, nostrils flaring at the prospect of another treat, and the decurion held out the apple before standing back for a proper look at his comrade’s new mount. ‘She’s nothing fancy, not a looker, but I’ll bet you good money that beast will run all day and get by on a few mouthfuls of grass when she has to. What will you call her, since the previous owner didn’t have time to discuss the finer details?’

Marcus laughed, staggering backwards slightly as the horse nudged him again, and held out the apple in surrender.

‘Here, take it before you tread on my foot.’ He grinned ruefully at Silus, nodding at the decurion’s knowing look. ‘Her name? I’m tempted to call her “Gobbler”, but that would hardly be fitting for an animal bred for war. Let’s see how she works out before saddling her with anything premature. .’

Both men turned to look back down the road as a horn blared distantly, watching as the Tungrian cohort’s leading century came into view around the shoulder of the mountain looming over them to the west. Silus turned to his men, barking orders.

‘Get into the trees and gather firewood. Once the grunts have staggered past us we’ll put poor old Bonehead to the torch, as much to spare his dignity as for the protection of any animal that decides to dine on his body.’ He raised an eyebrow at Marcus. ‘And you, Centurion Two Knives, had better go and meet with your superiors and warn them that we’re marching into a fight.’

First Spear Julius looked with professional dismay at the scene before him as his leading century crested the road’s last ridge, and came into view of the mining settlement they had been sent to protect. After a moment he shook his head at the sight opening up before him, an apparently disorganised sprawl of buildings that littered the valley floor as if some distracted god had flung a straggling handful of settlements to earth with no care as to where they fell. The valley ran east for another mile or so before the mountain that reared up at its far end closed it off like the bowl of a gigantic amphitheatre. His superior officer, a tall man with a wiry build that had initially deceived the Tungrians into believing he was unsuited to combat, laughed at the look of disgust on his senior centurion’s face.

‘So this is the Ravenstone valley, eh? Not up to much, is it Julius? I know what you’re thinking — is this why we were sent up here from Apulum without so much as time for a cup of wine in the officers’ mess?’

Julius had not yet got over the indifference with which the Thirteenth Legion’s broad stripe tribune had treated them at the Apulum fortress’s gate. He’d passed on his legatus’s orders for the three-cohort-strong detachment to march on into the mountains with the disdain of a patrician ordering a slave to clean out his toilet, and had allowed them no more of a pause in their march than had been required for a cohort of disgruntled Thracian archers to be chivvied out of their barracks and tagged on to the column.

‘You know what they say, Julius? If you can’t take a joke then you shouldn’t have joined up.’ Tribune Scaurus smiled at the dismay on the other man’s face as Julius found himself on the butt end of one of his own favourite jibes. ‘So, disappointed with what you see, are you, First Spear? Afraid you won’t find enough drinking dens and whorehouses for your liking, or had you forgotten that you’ve a woman to keep you away from all those distractions now?’

The senior centurion shook his head without losing the look of disgust as he took in the scattered buildings spread across the valley before them.

‘It’s not that, Tribune. Annia would have my balls off with a blunt and rusty spoon if I even considered such a thing. Although now that you mention it, given that we’ve been on the road for the best part of three months, the men are going up the wall for the want of some entertainment. No, what’s bothering me is the lack of defensive preparation.’

The tribune nodded, his eyes roaming the scene unfolding before them as they marched up the valley with professional interest.

‘Agreed. So what would you make our priorities, if you were my colleague Domitius Belletor?’

Julius’s reply required little time for consideration.

‘A wall. Something tall enough to keep unfriendly tribesmen from mobbing us. That, and I’d want to be sure that I had control of the heights.’

Scaurus nodded his agreement and then raised a hand to point at a figure advancing down the road towards them, the man’s legion uniform complemented by a staff held in his right hand where a soldier would normally have carried a spear.

‘Ignoring the fact that an enemy warband might well keep us a good deal more occupied than we’d like, if it’s entertainment you want I suspect this gentleman may hold the answer. I suggest you stop the column so that we can find out what it is he has to say to us.’

The lone soldier marched purposefully up to the two officers and snapped off a smart salute, coming to attention with a vigour and precision that raised eyebrows among the veteran troops at Julius’s back. On closer inspection the first spear realised that the legionary’s staff was in fact a standard, albeit one of a type he’d never seen before, the shaft of a spear with a strangely ornate head that seemed to have no obvious military function.

‘Greetings Tribune, Centurion. Welcome to the Ravenstone valley, and to the mining facility of Alburnus Major.’ His blue eyes darted to both of them in turn, giving each man a swift perusal with a glance that seemed both open and calculating. ‘I am Cattanius, a soldier of the Thirteenth Gemina Legion and beneficiarius to the legion’s legatus, sent to assist with the arrival of your detachment. You are the tribune commanding this force, I presume, sir?’

Scaurus stepped forward, returning Cattanius’s salute.

‘Gaius Rutilius Scaurus, tribune commanding the First and Second Tungrian Cohorts, but not, I should point out, the commander of this detachment.’ He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the long column of soldiers waiting under the mid-afternoon sun. ‘My colleague Domitius Belletor has overall command of our combined force. If you look down the column you will doubtless see a man on a horse coming to see what it is that has prompted this unscheduled stop. But since he will take a moment or two to reach us, perhaps we could pass that time by discussing a few topics of interest to me and my first spear here? And stand at ease man, there’s no need for ceremony.’

Cattanius relaxed a little.

‘What would you like to know, sir?’

Scaurus smiled wryly.

‘You could start by enlightening us as to why we find this precious imperial asset apparently stripped of any military presence. Surely one of the Dacian legions’ main tasks is to keep this place safe, given its critical importance to the province?’

The legionary nodded earnestly.

‘Indeed it is, Tribune. If it weren’t for the threat from the Sarmatae there would be a full cohort in the barracks, but Legatus Albinus decided to concentrate his forces-’

Scaurus raised an eyebrow.

‘Albinus?’

Cattanius nodded quickly.

‘Yes, sir. Legatus Clodius Albinus, officer commanding the Thirteenth Legion, and my beneficium.’

The tribune nodded, his demeanour outwardly unchanged, although Julius wondered if he had imagined the slight narrowing of his superior officer’s eyes when Cattanius had first mentioned the legatus’s name.

‘I see. My apologies. Do continue.’

‘Yes, sir. The legatus decided that in light of the Sarmatae threat-’

Julius raised a hand to stop him again.

‘You’ve mentioned that name twice now. Exactly who or what are the Sarmatae?’

Cattanius stooped, using his finger to draw a half-circle whose circumference pointed upwards in the dust at their feet, running a wavy line along its bottom where there would normally have been a flat side.

‘This is a very rough approximation of a map of Dacia. The wavy line is the river Danubius, and we are here. .’ He made a mark in the dust just inside the half-circle’s radius, halfway between the wavy line and the curve’s topmost point. ‘And here. .’ He pointed to the ground outside the half-circle, waving his hand around its perimeter. ‘Here are the Sarmatae. They’re a loose collection of tribes, nomadic and with an equine-based way of life. The grasslands beyond these mountains are swarming with them, a tribe called the Iazyges, and they breed like rabbits.’

Julius nodded his thanks, gesturing for the soldier to continue.

‘So, my legatus decided that he should concentrate his force at the legion’s fortress, ready to strike decisively in accordance with the governor’s wishes. Our scouts tell us that the main enemy threat is mustering on the north-western border. The knowledge that there were reinforcements from Germania within a few days’ march persuaded the legatus that the risk to the mine complex would be minimal, given what we know of the enemy’s dispositions.’

Scaurus leant forward with a look of concentration on his face.

‘Which would seem to have been somewhat courageous of him, given that my horsemen encountered barbarian scouts not ten miles back down the road. Exactly what do we know about them, Soldier Cattanius?’

The beneficiarius opened his mouth to respond, but his answer was stillborn in the face of an interruption over Scaurus’s shoulder.

‘What have we here, Scaurus?’

The Tungrian tribune turned away from the beneficiarius, looking up at his colleague Belletor as he loomed over them both from his position on the back of his horse. His fellow legion tribune had reined his horse in behind Belletor’s, and was looking down at Scaurus and his first spear with the poorly concealed curiosity that had been his perpetual expression ever since they had left Fortress Bonna. Scaurus nodded his respect to the horseman, indicating Cattanius with an extended hand.

‘A legionary legatus’s beneficiarius, colleague, sent to guide us into the valley and ensure that we settle into the defence of the mine as quickly as possible.’

‘Excellent!’ Belletor nodded down to Cattanius, who had snapped back to attention. ‘How very thoughtful of your legatus! You can guide us to the bath house, soldier, I’m positively filthy after so long on the road. I assume you can manage to get the men into whatever barracks the legion left for us, colleague.’

Scaurus nodded in reply, his face a study in neutrality.

‘Of course. I’ll talk to you later, Soldier Cattanius, if you can spare me the time. I suspect there’s a good deal more you can share with us as to the legatus’s plans.’

Cattanius saluted, shooting a swift glance of incredulity at Scaurus and Julius before looking up into the tribune’s smug face with his own features carefully composed into perfect neutrality.

‘This way, Tribune. There are both a heated room and a plunge pool in the commander’s quarters, and I took the liberty of having a fire lit an hour ago when we sighted you coming up the valley. We’ll have you sweating that road dirt out in no time.’

Scaurus and Julius watched the two officers ride away up the road, the first spear shaking his head in wonderment.

‘Every time I think there’s no way for that prick to go any lower in my opinion he finds a new way to look even less of a soldier.’

Scaurus nodded, turning back to the waiting column of men.

‘I know. But standing here mouthing insults at his back isn’t going to get these men into barracks and fed, is it? Get the First Cohort moving, First Spear, and we’ll rely on your colleague Sergius to have the sense to do the same for his legion troops.’

Julius saluted, his forehead creased questioningly.

‘It occurs to me to ask you, Tribune, what a beneficiarius is?’

Scaurus grinned back at him, hooking a thumb over his shoulder.

‘Given that the man in question was clever enough to have Belletor’s bathwater hot, I’d say that in this case a beneficiarius is at the very least a bright boy, wouldn’t you?

Once Julius had dismissed the Tungrians from the mine’s parade ground to their camp-building duties, Marcus found his wife and her new assistant sitting in their wagon. Bowing to Annia, he stretched his neck to plant a kiss on the sleeping baby cradled in Felicia’s arms.

‘Well he seems happy enough.’

His wife raised an eyebrow.

‘Remind me to check your ears for wax, Centurion. He was howling so hard while you were all parading that I was forced to hide in the back of the wagon and feed the little monster again, despite having filled him up no more than an hour before.’

Marcus wrinkled his nose.

‘Is that. .?’

Felicia nodded wryly, offering the sleeping infant to her husband.

‘Yes, as night follows day, so your son has followed a good feed by filling his undergarment with his usual impression of a well-ploughed field, grunting away in his sleep like a pig digging for truffles. The gods only know how Annia manages to tolerate it, because I can assure you that I’ll not be having any more of these little beasts for a good long while. Perhaps you’d like to change him?’

Her assistant laughed, her voice rich with a happy humour that had seemed impossible only months before, after her ordeal at the hands of the gang members she had believed to be her protectors, during the events of one fateful night in the city of Tungrorum.

‘It seems your lady is off-limits, Centurion, at least until the memory of constant feeding and bowel movements fades. Here, give him to me. .’ She reached out for the sleeping baby, taking him from Felicia with a smile of reassurance. ‘You two have a moment together and I’ll see if we have any more clean linen for his delicate little backside. Come on Appius, let’s see what we have back here. .’

Felicia watched her climb into the wagon’s rear with a smile before turning back to her husband.

‘So, what news, Centurion?’

Marcus shrugged.

‘The usual, it seems. There are sufficient stone barracks for one cohort, plus two dozen wooden huts which are in various stages of disrepair since they’ve not been used in years. Tribune Belletor’s legion cohort will take the barracks, of course, and we’ll camp in tents tonight, ready to start work putting the huts into habitable condition tomorrow.’

‘Which means that Julius will have every man working on the usual marching fort.’

Marcus smiled in reply.

‘Of course, with your tent right in the middle, and fifteen hundred Tungrians between you and anyone that wants to take us on. I must go and help my men put up the turf rampart, so I’ll see you later, once it’s all done. Where will you sleep tonight?’

She smiled, putting a hand to his cheek.

‘In my tent, with Annia and that little monster you insisted on dedicating to your father with a name no-one else has used for three hundred years. Come and see me later, and perhaps Annia will sit with the baby and give us a chance for a quiet moment together, once you’ve had a chance to wash away the mud you’re doubtless about to plaster all over yourself. I may not be entirely off-limits to a determined approach. .’

‘More wine for you, Tribune?’

Scaurus shook his head, raising a hand to indicate the tent’s door flap.

‘No thank you Arminius, I can cope well enough. You have a child to be training, I believe.’

The big German bowed slightly, and exited the tent with the same purposeful manner he did everything, closing the flap behind him to afford his master some degree of peace. The tribune poured himself a cup of wine, and another for his first spear, then set the spare cup down on the campaign chest that doubled as his desk. He sat down on his camp chair with the air of a man who had seen better times. Unlacing his boots he eased them off, sighing with the pleasure of putting his bare feet onto the tent’s grass floor, then stood and walked to the door, pushing the flap aside to stare out at the camp’s bustling scene. His Tungrians were hard at work digging out turf blocks for the customary earth fortifications that a commander ignored at his peril with an unknown enemy in the field. The four-foot-high wall rising around their tents was as ever arranged in a precise rectangle with only one opening, and high enough to slow an enemy’s charge and render them vulnerable to the defenders’ spears.

‘It doesn’t ever get any easier to watch our lads labouring while the legion cohort sits on its collective fat backside.’

He started, finding Julius standing at his shoulder with a look of distaste on his face.

‘No, First Spear, it certainly does not. Wine?’

The big man nodded his grateful acquiescence, and stepped into the tent behind his tribune, putting his helmet down and running a spadelike hand through his thick black hair. Both men had long since mastered their amazement at their situation, but neither had yet managed to swallow his deep dissatisfaction.

‘Do we have any orders beyond setting up camp, sir?’

Scaurus shook his head.

‘Tribune Belletor was as unforthcoming as ever, apart from telling me that he’ll be sending for the mine’s procurator once he’s settled in properly. I find myself gratefully surprised to have been invited to join the meeting at all.’ He shared a knowing look with the other man. ‘I’ll be taking you as my deputy and Centurion Corvus to carry my cloak. He can act as another pair of eyes and ears for us both, and look for anything that we might miss.’

Julius sipped at his wine, watching his senior officer over the rim of the cup and seeing the same pain in his eyes as the day their revised circumstances had become painfully clear to them both. Having marched his cohorts east to the First Minervia’s headquarters at Fortress Bonna on the river Rhenus, now over a thousand miles behind them, Scaurus had emerged from a meeting with the legion’s legatus with a thunderous expression. Knowing his tribune’s implacable temper once roused, Julius had guessed that his superior had restrained himself from ripping into the legion’s commanding officer by the narrowest of margins. Scaurus had stalked out of the headquarters building with Julius trailing in his wake before sharing the news in the street outside, his jaw clenched tight with anger.

‘We’re to march for Dacia, First Spear, under the command of a cohort of the First Minervia. In point of fact, I am subordinated to Tribune Belletor, who is to act as my superior officer in all matters.’

Julius could still remember his amazement at the news, and the blazing anger in his tribune’s responses to his disbelieving questions.

‘My orders from Governor Marcellus not to become subordinated to any other officer? Tossed aside without even being read. One of the legion’s equestrian tribunes, a man from my own social class if you like, took me aside before the meeting and quietly warned me that the legatus doesn’t care much for the governor of Britannia, having served under him during Ulpius Marcellus’s first spell in command of that miserable island. It was just as well he gave me that small clue as to what was coming, and therefore time to compose myself, or I might have taken my fists to the damned fool. And then where would we all be?’

After a moment’s pause to further calm himself, Scaurus had related the meeting’s events to his first spear through gritted teeth, shaking his head at the situation that had played out before him.

‘The bastard took a long leisurely piss all over our achievements in Tungrorum, Julius, and I had no choice but to keep my mouth shut and listen to his bullshit. He noted our victory over the bandit leader Obduro, in passing mind you, and then spent far longer decrying the destruction of Tungrorum’s grain store. “Levelled to the ground” was the phrase he used, while my halfwit colleague Belletor stood in silence with that shit-eating grin on his face. Never a word of commendation for the fortune in gold we recovered, or any recognition of the fact that the granaries we torched were largely repaired by the time we left, in fact quite the contrary. It was “disgraceful that imperial property and enough grain to feed this legion for a year” had been destroyed. Clearly I wasn’t fit for independent command, and would have to operate under the control of a “more measured officer and a man with better breeding”.’

He’d spat out the last words, drawing interested stares from the guards on duty outside the legion’s headquarters and the soldiers passing them in the fortress’s street. Julius had found the presence of mind, despite his respect for both the man’s rank and his fearsome temper once roused, to take him gently by the arm and lead him out of their earshot.

‘We are to be commanded, Julius, by a member of the senatorial class, a man from an impeccable family. In short, we are to be commanded by that buffoon Belletor. The man who couldn’t even make it to the battle outside Tungrorum for sore feet and lack of wind is now my superior.’ He’d laughed at the anger in Julius’s face, shaking his head in dark amusement. ‘Oh yes, now you know why I nearly went across the man’s desk and took him by the throat. But there’s more. Our orders from Governor Marcellus, to return home to Britannia once we’ve dealt with the bandit threat to Tungrorum, are out of the window I’m afraid. We’re to march for Dacia in company with Belletor’s cohort as reinforcement for the two legions holding the line there. Apparently some tribe or other is getting uppity and needs slapping down, so we get to march twenty miles a day for the next two months in the wrong direction to provide them with more spears. I asked about the chances of being transported by river, but apparently the fleet is tied up watching the northern bank of the Rhenus in case the German tribes choose to take the opportunity to renew their attack on the province.’

Julius had grimaced, shaking his head in dismay.

‘The men won’t be happy marching east.’

Scaurus had laughed sardonically.

‘What, they won’t like not going home? Wait until they’ve endured a few weeks of Belletor’s leadership! He is, as the legatus took great pleasure in telling him in my presence, to keep me on a “very tight rope indeed”. If I show any signs of failing to accept my situation with the appropriate deference to his rank, he is authorised and indeed encouraged to replace me with a young man of equally good family who is to come along for the ride. Lucius Carius Sigilis, another young tribune from the senatorial class, still wet behind the ears and already driving the senior centurions to distraction, I expect. It’s an opportunity for the legatus to rid himself of a pair of daddy’s boys who are no practical use to him, and to gain favour with their fathers for giving them their chance for glory and advancement. If I don’t like it then Belletor can remove me from command and send me home with a snap of his fingers, put this boy soldier in my place and, of course, impose a pair of new first spears from his own cohort on our soldiers, just to make sure they do what they’re told. I’d imagine the only thing that will stop him from doing so the moment we’re out of camp will be the sweet anticipation of my humiliation, and after that my happy acceptance of whatever indignity he chooses to throw at me. And if I go, First Spear, then you’ll find yourself back in command of a century with a legion man in control of the cohort. If you or any other of our officers make their feelings on the subject clear then the outcome’s likely to be your dismissal from the service on whatever charge of misconduct Belletor feels like inventing for the purpose, without either citizenship or pension. So we’re all going to have to learn to bite our tongues and wait for the big wheel to turn, aren’t we? Just make sure that your officers are perfectly clear on my expectation that we can all display sufficient maturity to see this temporary inconvenience through. .’

In the event, Scaurus’s good reputation with his officers and men had resulted in a conspiracy of silence across both of the cohorts under his command, and the soldiers had contented themselves with bringing a particular gusto to those of their marching songs with any relevance to the legionaries marching alongside them. Julius walked to the door, cup in hand, and looked out at the toiling soldiers for a moment before turning back to his tribune with a shrug.

‘If it’s of any consolation, Tribune, my colleague Sergius is as embarrassed as ever at being told to sit on his hands while we do all the work.’

Scaurus nodded his understanding.

‘I can imagine. But any soldier sharp enough to reach the rank of first spear in a legion cohort knows very well when to keep his mouth shut. He’s of far more value to us as a friend in Belletor’s camp than for any brief excitement he might whip up by protesting our case. And in any case, I think the worst part of our ordeal is over. Now that we don’t have to dig out a marching camp every night we can get back to some real soldiering. There’s a decent fight waiting for us somewhere out there, and I don’t intend for my men to be found wanting.’

Marcus walked wearily into the Fifth Century’s lines as the sun was falling toward the western horizon, finding Arminius and Morban’s grandson Lupus waiting for him outside his tent, the child still wet with the sweat of his evening lesson with sword and shield. The big German got to his feet and pointed to the tent’s door.

‘Inside if you will, Centurion, and get that gear off so that the boy can get to work with his brushes. It’s all very well you working on the turf rampart alongside your men, but we can’t have you covered in mud on parade tomorrow morning. The boots too. We’ve laid out a clean tunic and your soft shoes, and there’s a bowl of warm water in there for you to wash your face. The doctor came to see us a while ago and asked me to pass on the message that she would indeed be delighted to take a cup of wine with you before bed, if you can tear yourself away from your usual feats of military engineering.’

Marcus washed, taking pleasure from the sensation of the clean water drying on his skin after a full day’s labour, then pulled on the clean tunic and belted it so that the hem was above his knees in the approved military fashion. Re-emerging into the evening sun he found Lupus hard at work on his boots, buffing them back to their customary morning shine. He squatted next to the boy, noting that the sword he and Arminius had purchased for him in Tungrorum was laid alongside him in the grass in its battered metal scabbard.

‘We haven’t spoken much recently, Lupus. .’ He paused, struggling for words as the boy continued his polishing without looking up. ‘I’ve been really busy, and little Appius, well. .’

Lupus rescued him, still intent on his work as he spoke into the silence, his voice still high and clear.

‘Arminius told me that my job is to keep your equipment clean and to learn to fight as well as he can. And that nothing else matters. When I can fight well enough he says I can be a soldier, and serve in your century like my daddy did.’

Abashed at the boy’s matter-of-fact acceptance of the harsh facts, Marcus thought for a moment before replying.

‘Your father was a brave man, and when you can hold your own in a fight with Arminius I’ll be proud to serve alongside you. But you do know that your grandfather loves you too, don’t you?’

Lupus grimaced at the boot.

‘My grandfather loves me well enough, but he also loves drink, and ladies, and most of all he loves to gamble. But all I love is this. .’

He lifted the metal scabbard, and Marcus thought his heart was going to break.

‘Give me the boot, Lupus.’ The child frowned and handed it to him, and Marcus looked down at the shining leather with a quick nod. ‘Perfect.’ He tossed it into the tent behind him, then reached over for the other, still streaked with mud, and repeated the act.

‘But it’s not clean. .’

Lupus fell silent as he realised that the centurion’s hand was held out palm upwards.

‘Now give me the sword.’

The boy’s face crumpled, on the verge of tears.

‘But. .’

Marcus took the weapon from his hands, forcing a smile onto his face.

‘You can have it back later, I promise.’ He reached over and plucked the weapon from Lupus’s unresisting hands. ‘It can sit alongside mine while we’re away. Nobody’s going to risk taking liberties with a pair of dangerous swordsmen like you and me.’

He leaned back into the tent, and laid the scabbard down next to his blades, shaking his head at the stark simplicity of the weapons’ purpose.

‘Now then, come with me. We’ll worry about the boots and the armour in the morning, eh? Tonight you can join Felicia and me for our meal, and little Appius too, if he’s awake.’ He squatted onto his haunches, looking up at the boy’s mystified face. ‘Lupus, you’re going to make a perfect soldier, when the time comes. By the time you’re fifteen you’ll probably be able to do more with a sword than I can now, but we’re making you into a soldier before your time, and it’s not fair.’ He put a finger under the boy’s chin, lifting it until the boy met his eyes, his voice soft with the memories of his own younger brother. ‘There’s another life you need to live before you take the oath, Lupus, you need to be a boy for just a while longer, and have as much of a family as we can make for you. Come on, let’s go and see which one of us can get little Appius to give him a smile first. .’

Tribune Scaurus was busy with a long-overdue review of the cohort’s records when the beneficiarius appeared at the door of his tent with an apologetic salute.

‘I’m sorry to disturb you, Tribune, but you did ask me to find you again when I had the chance.’

The tribune sat back from the table and nodded to his clerk, running a hand through his hair.

‘That will be all for the time being, there’s nothing much wrong with it all from what I can see. Do come in, Beneficiarius.’

Cattanius stepped inside the tent, and the two men waited in silence while the clerk gathered his scrolls and left. Scaurus gestured to the chair that the administrator had vacated, and allowed the soldier to take a seat before speaking.

‘Where are you from, Soldier Cattanius?’

‘The province of Noricum, Tribune, from a little village in the mountains above Virunum.’

‘And you’re how old?’

‘Twenty-four, Tribune, I joined the legion when I was sixteen.’

Scaurus raised an eyebrow in recognition of the younger man’s achievement. Whilst his failure to progress beyond the rank of soldier might be considered disappointing for a bright young man in some quarters, Cattanius was clearly far better suited to the careful calculation frequently required of a legatus’s representative than the casual brutality needed to rule a century as a watch officer or chosen man. As if reading his mind, the beneficiarius smiled knowingly.

‘I’d have been a soldier for the rest of my life if not for Legatus Albinus, and not a particularly good one either.’

He fell silent, waiting while Scaurus appraised him more closely. After a long pause the tribune sat back in his chair with an inquisitorial air.

‘So who is it?’

‘Tribune?’

‘Don’t play it coy with me, Soldier Cattanius. Beneficiarius or not, I outrank you quite severely, and I’m not a pleasant man when I believe I’m being played for a fool. You’re bright enough to understand the question, and quite possibly devious enough to know the answer too. So, in your opinion, who is it?’

Cattanius shifted uneasily.

‘I don’t know, Tribune.’

‘You do think there’s an insider though, don’t you? In fact I’d bet all the gold waiting for shipment down the road to Apulum that you believe there’s a traitor somewhere in the mine’s hierarchy. Come on man, either give me the truth or your recent run of good luck will very likely take a turn for the worse.’

The beneficiarius shrugged.

‘There was a time when we thought there might be someone inside the mine organisation with a line of communication to the Sarmatae, which is why the legatus had me spend so much time here over the last few months, but if such an individual exists I am yet to discover any trace of them. Besides that, we have a spy deep in Sarmatae territory; a former soldier turned merchant who has spent the last five years working his way into a position of trust. He curses the empire that enslaved him in the service with every opportunity he gets, and poses as a man that has turned his back on his past. He sends intelligence out to us with the traders that work both sides of the frontier, and his most recent message stated that the tribesmen are getting ready to attack into Dacia. He tells us that there are two war leaders, Boraz and Purta, tribal kings who are both unwilling to subordinate to the other, but who have reached an agreement as to their joint plan of campaign. One of them will attack Porolissum, the most important of the forts that defends the north-west of the province, aiming to smash through our defensive line before raiding deeper into the province, while the other will take advantage of the confusion caused to capture Alburnus Major at a time calculated to ensure that there is a full shipment of gold ready for transport to Rome.’

Scaurus digested the information for a moment.

‘Which I presume is currently the case?’

‘It will be in a week or so, Tribune. We tend to ship the gold down to Apulum once a month, three thousand pounds or so in each shipment.’

Scaurus thought for a moment.

‘I see. And how can you tell that this man’s messages are really from him, if he never leaves Sarmatae territory?’

‘We have a means of knowing whether the men who bring his despatches are genuine. He sends messages out to us every few months, using a different trader every time to avoid developing any pattern that might betray him. The men he uses are given sealed containers to carry across the border in return for a significant amount of gold, most of which is not paid until they have made delivery with the message tube’s seal intact. The message warning of the coming attack arrived in Apulum last week, carried by a horse trader who described our man’s identifying feature in perfect detail.’

‘He described the man’s face?’

Cattanius shook his head, smiling at the senior officer’s innocence.

‘Oh no, Tribune, he’s very careful never to let his face be seen, so that the men he chooses can never link the message back to him if they are caught in the act. What he shows the traders to whom he entrusts his messages is a finely made gold ring in which is mounted a large and beautifully finished garnet. They describe it to us, and so we know that the message is genuine.’

Scaurus raised an eyebrow.

‘And so when this intelligence of a Sarmatae attack was received, Legatus Albinus decided to beat them to the punch in the north, didn’t he?’

The beneficiarius nodded.

‘Yes. The withdrawal of the mine’s guard cohort wasn’t just a response to the threat to Porolissum, although the Thirteenth Gemina is marching there to join up with the Fifth Macedonica, ready to repel the northern attack. Knowing that your cohorts were only a few days away, and having a good idea as to how long it would take the Sarmatae to make their attack on the mine, the legatus gambled that-’

‘Sacred Father, he gambled with the richest goldmine in the empire!’ Scaurus shook his head in disbelief. ‘It just goes to prove what his centurions always used to say about him during the German wars. There’s bold, there’s downright reckless, and then there’s Decimus Clodius Albinus.’

Marcus walked back down the line of his century’s tents later that night to find a small brazier set up outside the entrance to his own tent, and several men sitting in its cherry-red glow, talking quietly. The nearest of them got to his feet and nodded a greeting, a leather boot held in one hand and a polishing rag in the other. The Roman shook his head in mock amusement.

‘You appear to be cleaning my boots, Arminius?’

The German flicked his long hair away from his face, having released it from his customary heavy topknot.

‘And a good thing too, I’d say. You’d either have lost precious time cleaning it yourself in the morning, or else appeared on parade with one boot gleaming and the other still covered in mud. I came to get the boy for dinner, knowing that his grandfather had managed to find a jar of wine and was happily pouring it down his neck without a care in the world, only to be told that you’d walked him down to your wife’s tent. It was clear enough that your gear would need some attention, and so. .’

The one-eyed warrior who had been sitting next to him stood up and joined them, stretching extravagantly in the fire’s warmth and gesturing for his bodyguard to stay in their places by the fire. A prince of the Votadini tribe,which dwelled in Britannia’s northern mountains beyond the Roman wall, Martos had gone into voluntary exile with the Tungrians after his people’s ill-fated participation in the tribal revolt that still wracked the province.

‘And so we decided to make a party of it. The German here and I found the standard bearer and took possession of his wine before he managed to get through all of it. We told him to view it as the fee to be paid for leaving his grandson to the care of others.’

Arminius grimaced.

‘In truth, it was the prince’s tame Selgovae monster who did most of the dispossessing. .’

Marcus raised an eyebrow at Martos, who nodded in agreement.

‘It was a sight you would have enjoyed, Centurion. Lugos just took the jar from Morban and then put a hand on his head to hold him off at arm’s length until he got bored of trying to get it back.’

The Roman smiled quietly at the way in which the Selgovae giant had quietly and patiently become a regular companion to the Votadini prince during their long march to the east, despite the burning hatred his friend still felt for Lugos’s tribe after their betrayal by the Selgovae’s king Calgus. He nodded, looking hopefully at the jar.

‘If you have any wine left. .’

A cup was passed, and Marcus drank a mouthful of the rich wine.

‘You left the boy with your wife?’

He nodded at Martos’s question.

‘He fell asleep next to Appius’s cot, and I didn’t have the heart to wake him. It must be hard on him to have travelled all this way from home without the company of anyone his own age.’

The men around the fire nodded, and for a moment there was silence as each of them considered the boy’s isolation within the cohort’s hard world. After a moment Lugos stood up on the far side of the brazier, passing Marcus his swords with a bow and a rumble of explanation.

‘Have made sharp.’

Arminius snorted out a bark of laughter, pointing at the weapon in disbelief.

‘You sharpened those?’

The enormous Briton shrugged easily, as resolute as ever in failing to take offence at the rough humour of his fellows.

‘No blade ever too sharp.’ He looked at the weapon resting on the Roman’s knee with a reverential expression. ‘Is sword fit for mighty god Cocidius himself.’

Marcus returned the bow with a gentle smile.

‘My thanks for your efforts, Lugos. As you say, a sword can never be too sharp.’

Arminius snorted again.

‘Even a blade that was forged so keen that it will cut through a shield as if the board were made from parchment?’

The massive Briton answered on Marcus’s behalf, his expression foreboding in the fire’s half-light.

‘Centurion need sharp iron soon. This place be watch from hills around. Lugos feels eyes.’

The Roman looked at Martos and Arminius, and found both men nodding in agreement. The Votadini prince spoke first.

‘We all feel them, Centurion. Our enemy, whoever they may be, is close at hand. This place will know a bloody day soon enough.’