The Wolf's gold

8

The fortification along the ditch was different to the last time Marcus had seen it, studded with arrows sunk deep into the mud wall and the ground behind it where the Thracian’s shots had landed short and failed to find targets. Julius set a party of men to collecting the undamaged missiles.

‘We’ll be needing these before the siege ends, I’d guess,’ said Julius. ‘They’ll provide a useful back-up supply to Qadir’s boys.’ He suddenly found himself off balance, having stepped into a depression in the ground, and looked down to make the unwelcome discovery of a shallow latrine pit dug to provide the Britons with some relief during their long day guarding the ditch. Grimacing in disgust he lifted his boot, the sole dark with excrement. ‘Well, doesn’t that just sum up this whole bloody campaign? We just can’t stop treading in the fucking shit! Get those bloody ropes over here!’

Marcus looked over the wall at the enemy ramp, whose tongue was now less than ten paces from the ditch’s steep western face.

‘They’ll be back in strength at first light, once their archers can see to shoot back at anyone brave enough to take potshots at them from the walls.’ Martos had stepped up alongside him, his one good eye shining in the moonlight as he spoke softly in his friend’s ear. ‘The ramp’s close enough already, I’d say. If it were me I’d flog my slaves to one last effort and make the end twice as wide as it is now, with enough space for three or four heavy planks. That way they can come at us in numbers, with their wild men up front, burning mad and with the promise of enough gold to live on for the rest of their days if they breach the wall. Ninety-nine men out of the first hundred across will die, of course, but they’ll carve a foothold out on this side by sheer weight of numbers, and all the time their archers will be showering us with arrows from either side. .’ The Votadini nobleman stopped talking, looking at Marcus knowingly. ‘What is it? What’s crossed your mind now?’

‘Something you just said. Wait here, and gather a score of your men ready for a fight, if you’re ready for a little excitement.’

The Votadini prince tapped his eyepatch as he turned away to his men.

‘I was born ready, Centurion.’

Marcus walked across to Julius, pulling a face at the revolting smell emanating from his friend’s dirty boot. The first spear turned to meet him, his face hardening at the Roman’s expression.

‘And you can fuck right off too. I’ve already had Dubnus enquiring whether I’m looking for a job as a legion bathhouse cleaner.’

Marcus shook his head with a smile, and quickly laid out his idea. He’d not finished explaining the potential to undo the Sarmatae plans when Julius nodded vigorously.

‘It works for me. You, Soldier Lumpyface, or whatever your name is, go and find the tribune and ask him to come and join us here. And we haven’t got all fucking night, so move!’

The man in question scurried away with a muttered comment to his mates that the first spear’s smell had finally caught up with his nickname, which Julius half heard and completely ignored mainly because he was sending other soldiers along the line to gather the cohorts’ officers. Scaurus appeared out of the darkness a moment later, his gloomy expression momentarily lightened when he caught wind of Julius’s distinctive new odour.

‘My word, First Spear, but that really is a most aromatic perfume you’re using these days. At least it’ll make finding you in the dark easy enough.’

His subordinate smiled thinly, and laid out Marcus’s proposal.

‘But we’ll need some gear out of the fort, and quickly too, before the chance is gone. If I send a man in to ask for what we’ll need he’ll just get told to piss off by the duty centurion on the grounds it all sounds like too much trouble, whereas you, Tribune. .’

‘Whereas I’m somewhat less likely to find myself holding the dirty end of the vine stick? Very well. .’ He turned away for the fort, shooting a parting comment over his shoulder. ‘And that said, perhaps you could use your vine stick to scrape off some of the offensive material that’s clinging to your boots?’

He was back within a few minutes, accompanied by two soldiers carrying the materials required. In his absence the centurions had watched as Martos and a dozen of his men roped down the ditch’s steep western slope to the bottom of the trench, still strewn with ash and the remains of the burned bodies left there from the previous night’s conflagration. They had climbed swiftly up the ramp’s steep sides until they stood atop the earthwork, squatting low to avoid revealing their presence to any enemy scouts left to watch the deserted battlefield. The Tungrians manhandled the first of the heavy wooden planks that Scaurus had fetched from the fort across the gap, watching anxiously as the Votadini pulled it into place against the ramp’s brow. Martos walked carefully down the bridge’s gentle slope until he was standing three feet from the turf wall, experimentally testing the plank with his weight as he came across. He called out to Julius in a soft voice, holding up a single finger.

‘One man at a time, I suggest, and definitely none of those monsters in your Tenth Century!’

Julius moved to step onto the bridge, but the tribune put a hand on his shoulder.

‘Not you. I need you here to take command if anything happens to me over there.’

The first spear frowned in disapproval, gesturing Marcus to join them.

‘I’m not allowed across, so you’re going to have to take responsibility for keeping the tribune here alive. Have Martos set up a perimeter. If any of those bodies are still breathing then I want them killed, quickly and quietly, be they Sarmatae, slave or even Roman.’ He turned a challenging look on his superior. ‘I assume you can live with that, Tribune?’

Scaurus nodded slowly, turning back to the plank bridge, and behind his back Julius shot a meaningful glance at Marcus, muttering in his brother officer’s ear.

‘The first sign of any move by the enemy and I want him back across that plank and behind the wall, you hear me? I won’t go down in this cohort’s history as the man who allowed his tribune to get himself killed just because the man felt a bit guilty about some dead slaves.’

He signalled for the soldiers he had picked to carry out their orders, and the nimblest of them went across the bridge quickly and quietly, carrying the end of another plank to double the width of the crossing. Marcus stepped out onto the impromptu bridge, pacing tentatively forward as the plank beneath his feet sagged gently under his weight, but reached the far side of the gap safely enough. The ground before him was dark in the absence of any moonlight, and he was forced to call for the barbarian prince in a loud whisper.

‘Martos!’

A darkly amused voice in his ear made him jump.

‘There’s no need for you to shout, Centurion. It seems I see better with one eye than you do with two?’

Resisting the urge to make an acerbic reply, Marcus pointed out into the darkness.

‘We need to guard the soldiers while they do as much damage to the ramp as they can before the Sarmatae realise what we’re doing. Have your men spread out and form a perimeter thirty paces around us. Anyone they find still alive as they move forward is to be killed, without any noise. And Martos, if I fall out here, your only priority is to get the tribune back across the bridge, you understand?’

The prince nodded and gathered his men about him. With his whispered orders given, he gestured them forward with a finger ostentatiously held across his lips. Turning back to the plank bridge, Marcus saw Scaurus kneeling next to a prostrate body, and paced back to his side with his gladius drawn. Behind him the Tungrian working party were labouring frantically at the ramp sides with their borrowed spades, shovelling the soil and small rocks that had been deposited during the previous day down into the ditch to either side while leaving a slim finger of ground connected to their bridging point as they toiled to lower the earthwork round it as quickly as they could.

‘This poor man never had a chance.’

Marcus followed the tribune’s pointing hand to an arrow buried deeply in the slave’s chest, a wound from which the only possible outcome was a slow and painful death. The dying man gazed up at him in wonder, his lips moving as he muttered something in a language neither man spoke. Raising his dagger, Scaurus slid the weapon’s point into the man’s chest between his ribs, thrusting it cleanly through his heart and killing him instantly. He withdrew the blade, holding it up to look at the blood’s black stain on the blade.

‘I swear I’ll help as many of these poor souls to find peace as I can in whatever time we have. I suggest you do the same?’

Marcus turned away and stared out into the night again, still detecting no sign that their desperate venture had been discovered. He paced forward looking for Martos, crouching low to avoid silhouetting himself against any light from the fort, and was still searching the darkness before him for any sign of his friend when a hand gripped his ankle. Spinning round, he cocked his wrist to put the spatha’s pale blade through whoever it was that had touched him when a harsh whisper stayed his hand, the words haltingly slow as the man on the ground before him fought for every breath.

‘Help me. .’

The prostrate Roman’s eyes snapped wide with the pain as he rolled onto his back. The smell of his perforated intestines was strong in the night air, and Marcus looked down at him with pity, knowing that without the mercy of a sword stroke he could live for days in agony. The man croaked out a single word, his voice raw with pain.

‘We. . are all. . dead.’

The young centurion shook his head in despair.

‘We?’

‘Wife. . dead. Killed. . yesterday. Daughter. . raped.’ The veteran soldier sobbed, lost in his pain and sorrow, and a tear ran down his cheek. ‘Sons. . here. . somewhere.’ He fumbled at his neck, pulling hard on a thin cord to drag a pendant from his throat. ‘Take it. . return. . to Our Lord.’ Marcus nodded down at him, numb with dismay, and closed his hand over the metal disc. The doomed man gripped his fist tightly, his hold strong despite the pain tearing at him. ‘Centurion. . beseech you. . revenge. .’ He hunched over the arrow again as a fresh spasm of pain drove through him, pulling up his sleeve to display a legion tattoo. ‘For a soldier. .’

The Roman pulled his hand free as gently as he was able, then patted the convulsing man’s shoulder.

‘Go in peace, brother. I will send you across the river.’

He pushed the sword’s point up into the dying man’s chin, and deep into his head, watching as the veteran’s eyes rolled up and death claimed him. Pulling a copper coin from his belt purse he slipped it into the man’s mouth, pushing it in as far as he could against the probable theft were it discovered, then turned back to his search for Martos only to find the prince waiting patiently for him.

‘I fear you lack enough coins of any denomination to cope with this.’

He gestured with a hand at the ground around them, and as the moon slid out from behind the clouds that had masked it both the soldiers and Martos’s barbarians froze into immobility, knowing that any movement might betray their positions. While the scene revealed by the pale light was no worse than any battlefield the Roman had witnessed, his heart fell as he realised the sheer horrifying variety in the hundreds of dead and dying bodies strewn across the snow beyond the ramp’s earth surface, their blood tracing dark, evil patterns across the white expanse in extravagant gouts and delicate sprinkles depending on their wounds. The moonlight faded as another cloud scudded into place, and Martos’s men resumed the grisly task of executing Julius’s orders to leave no-one alive inside their perimeter.

‘There isn’t the time to give all of these people the mercy of our swords. I suggest you concentrate on destroying that earthwork?’

Realising the truth in the Votadini’s words Marcus paced back to the ramp, finding Scaurus on his knees beside another wounded slave. The soldiers labouring at the task of deconstructing the earthwork had carved great chunks out of its flanks but were clearly starting to tire, their movements becoming slow and arduous. Ignoring his grief-stricken superior for a moment he walked carefully over the planks, saluting Julius and pointing back out across the ditch.

‘The men we sent over are exhausted. We’ll need to change them for fresh workers.’

Julius nodded and gave the order for replacement soldiers to cross the gap, both men watching as the worn-out men made their weary way back across the bridge. As the new work party set about the ramp Marcus grimaced at his superior officer.

‘This quiet can’t hold much longer. Once the Sarmatae have done with licking their wounds they’ll be back, and it won’t take them long to realise what we’re up to. I’m going to send the tribune back now, whether he likes it or not.’

Julius tilted his head in question, his lips pursed.

‘And what if he won’t come with you? You can’t just carry him back over.’

Marcus nodded grimly.

‘I think he’ll see sense. I’m going to give him something to care about more than his despair at what he’s done here. But just in case more desperate measures are called for, where’s Arminius?’

He stepped across the bridge with the tribune’s bodyguard following behind him to find Martos waiting impatiently for him among the toiling soldiers.

‘The time has come for a little haste, Centurion. The enemy are coming to reclaim their battlefield from the sound of it.’

Marcus pointed to the perimeter.

‘Get all your men but one back across the bridge. Make sure the man you leave has a good pair of legs and balls the size of a horse’s between them. Tell him to run for the bridge and give us the warning when they come within fifty paces of him. No sooner!’ The barbarian turned away, and Marcus whispered encouragement to the digging soldiers before crouching down beside Scaurus who was still kneeling alongside the fallen slave.

‘He’s dead, Tribune.’

The senior officer gently placed the corpse’s hand back on its chest.

‘I need to seek their forgiveness, Centurion. Tell Julius he’s in comm-’

‘No.’

Scaurus turned his head to look at his subordinate blankly.

‘You might not understand your position in this matter, Centurion.’

Marcus shook his head bluntly, allowing the same note of patrician aloofness he’d heard his father use on occasion to enter his voice.

‘I said no, Tribune, and I meant it.’ Scaurus opened his mouth to object, but the young centurion overrode his protest before he had the chance to speak. ‘You have a greater responsibility than seeking atonement by sacrificing yourself here, however noble that death might be. You have this. .’ He pushed the veteran’s pendant into the tribune’s hand. Scaurus turned it over, recognising the Mithraic scene immediately. ‘The man around whose neck this hung was a retired soldier, captured with his family by the Sarmatae and forced to watch them being abused, murdered and worked to death. He gave me the pendant a moment ago, before I sent him to Our Lord, and begged me to see that it is returned to a temple, and to take some measure of revenge for him.’ He bent to hiss in the tribune’s ear, his voice loaded with urgency. ‘Tribune, you are innocent in this matter! It was Tribune Belletor who made the decision to leave Roman citizens enslaved, not you. His judgement was perverted by his need to gain a peace that would enhance his reputation and diminish yours, and it is clear to me that he has already paid the price for that self-interest.’

He waved a hand at the dead and dying slaves littering the ground around them.

‘Misery and death was always the fate of these people, and all you did by calling down the arrow storm on them was to bring forward the date of their deaths, and spare them any further degradation. The man who put these people under our arrows was not you, Tribune, but their captor. I have accepted the duty of bringing Balodi to justice in the eyes of our god. .’ He took the pendant from his superior’s palm and clenched his fist around it. ‘I invite you to join me in that duty, unless you would rather stay here and give your life away? After all, you ordered me to consider my men’s needs when the death of one of them unmanned me, and I only command a century.’

Scaurus looked down, and for a moment Marcus was certain he would decline the challenge, but Arminius spoke up from the darkness behind the centurion, his voice strong with purpose.

‘And if I must, I will take you across the bridge whether you wish it or not. You will not throw yourself away over this matter, or at least not before your duty to these men is complete. If you insist on some grand gesture to the gods once this thing is over, if we survive, then I will stand as second to you, and ensure that your end is clean, but for now you must act as the warrior we know you to be.’

Scaurus stared down at the dead captive for a moment longer, but when he looked up at the two men again his eyes had regained some of the fierceness to which they were more accustomed.

‘I always saw you as more gentleman than soldier, for all of your demonic skill with a blade, Centurion Corvus, but it seems you’re a harder man than I imagined. Will I join you in the duty of avenging a dead soldier and his family? I’d call you an insubordinate young bastard and have you demoted if I didn’t know why you’re goading me. .’ He sighed, looking down at the dead man again. ‘And I don’t suppose this man’s spirit is going to thank me for doing nothing to take some form of revenge for him.’

Climbing to his feet, he looked at Marcus and Arminius with fresh determination, his teeth bared in anger.

‘So what would you have me do, Centurion, to make amends for this slaughter?’

The younger man pointed at the ditch, and the indistinct figures lurking behind the wall on its far side.

‘Get back to your command, Tribune. Your revenge can only be taken at their head, and with a thousand swords rather than just your own.’

The Tribune nodded and turned away, walking across the plank bridge without a backward glance, and Arminius followed behind him. Marcus looked back to the open ground to see the indistinct shapes of Martos and his men picking their way through the field of corpses.

‘I left the fastest of my warriors to watch out for the enemy’s approach as you requested. We can hear them mustering, too far away to be seen, but they’re out there.’

The Roman put a hand on the Briton’s shoulder, guiding him to the bridge.

‘Take your men to safety. I’ll make sure your runner crosses before we drop the planks.’

He looked about him, gauging the amount of destruction the Tungrians had wrought on the Sarmatae earthwork in the little time that had been afforded to them. One of the soldiers was struggling over his shovel, and Marcus reached out to take the implement, pointing to the flimsy bridge.

‘Go.’

As the grateful soldier headed for safety Marcus addressed the man’s comrades, hefting the shovel ready to dig.

‘We don’t have long, gentlemen, before the enemy discover us. Before they do, if we want to see tomorrow’s sunset, then we must make this ramp unusable.’

He waved a hand at the earthwork’s wreckage, so badly chewed and pitted by the frantic efforts of the soldiers that the planks were now pointing up at the Tungrians’ battlement, rather than running down to meet it.

‘And for that to come about, we must hack away as much of this’ — he pointed to the ramp’s tongue, on which they were standing — ‘as we can. Now we dig, as fast as possible, and when the time comes I will send you back to safety. So dig!’

The Tungrians set to with fresh purpose, invigorated by the sight of an officer hacking away at the compacted earth with his shovel. Looking up for a moment, Marcus found Martos at his side again, a rope in one hand and another tied about him. Martos took the shovel and pushed the Roman aside, handing him the rope’s end and then taking his place among the soldiers, plying the implement with powerful strokes, chopping into the earth and flinging the resulting clods of earth into the ditch below as fast as he could.

‘Tie the rope about you, and make it tight!’

The last remaining Votadini warrior ran out of the darkness, gesturing back the way he had come, and Marcus turned to his men with the rope knotted tightly about his chest, taking a shovel from the closest of them.

‘Go! Get across the bridge now!’

They bolted, shaking the planks so badly in their haste that one of the boards overturned, pitching two of the Tungrians into the filthy ash residue in the ditch’s bottom. Ropes were thrown down to them, but Marcus had no time to see if their rescue would be successful. Martos turned to the other plank, pushing at it with his booted foot to sending it spinning down into the ditch’s gloom. He pointed at the ramp’s end.

‘You and I, Centurion!’

Nodding his understanding Marcus set to with his shovel again, the two men digging out chunks of the ramp’s forward edge and tossing them into the ditch with the furious energy of men possessed, bending to stay out of sight of the barbarian warriors approaching out of the gloom to the west. Sliding down onto the ramp’s steep side they concentrated their efforts on the tongue itself, working frantically to cast as much of it as possible into the darkness below. Straightening his back to stretch out arms made heavy by fatigue, Marcus looked round to find familiar faces behind the turf wall, and saw bows being raised to shoot. A warrior suddenly loomed over him at the ramp’s edge, his mouth open with the shock of finding the Roman beneath his feet, but as the Sarmatae opened his mouth to call out a warning he was struck by first one arrow and then two more, pitching forward into the ditch over Marcus’s shoulder without making a sound.

Carving out another chunk of compacted soil, Marcus dropped it into the darkness, and another, ignoring the threat of attack in his haste to do as much damage as he could to the ramp. A hand touched his shoulder, and he looked at Martos to see that the Votadini had a finger to his lips. He pointed downwards, then slid away down the earthwork’s side and into the ditch’s deep shadow, and the Roman followed suit, holding onto his shovel and using it to break his descent into the darkness. He landed on the ditch’s floor, feeling his boots sink into the detritus of snow, ash and the rancid smelling sticky paste left by so many burning bodies. He whispered to Martos, wrinkling his nose at the smell that permeated the air around them despite the night’s frigid air.

‘It’s a good thing it’s so cold. On a warmer day this place would smell like the entrance to Hades.’

Martos pointed upwards.

‘And up there, well that may well be Hades itself.’

Above them men were shouting, more voices than Marcus could distinguish, and they could see the flickers of arrows being exchanged between the two sides. He looked at Martos with a wry smile.

‘Qadir and his archers will present the Sarmatae with a nasty shock, given the tribesmen have nothing to hide behind out there.’

As they looked upwards a face peered down at them from over the wall, and an arm pointed down the ditch to the west. Untying the ropes fastened about them they quietly slipped down the trench in the direction indicated for fifty paces or so, until they came across two more hanging ropes, their ends already fashioned into loops that would fit over their heads and arms to nestle snugly under their armpits. Another face appeared, familiar bearded features under a centurion’s helmet, and Marcus shared a quick glance with Martos as both men simultaneously realised what was about to happen. With a terrific jerk they were hauled bodily into the air, their bodies flying up the ditch’s steep face too fast for either of them to have any hope of controlling their ascent. The Roman found himself scrabbling at the turf wall as he was hauled bodily over it, then crashed heavily onto the ground on the other side. He looked up to see Titus, the hulking centurion of the Tenth Century, looming over him. The giant was grinning down at him, and two tent parties of his men were standing behind him with the ropes lying at their feet. Julius stood next to the big man, a full head shorter than his officer despite his own hefty frame. Getting his breath back Marcus nodded his gratitude to his brother officer.

‘Thank you, Titus. It was an unconventional return to the cohort, but welcome nonetheless.’

‘At your service, little brother. A tiddler like you is never a problem for my lads. Mind you, you might want to go and find some water. .’ His nose wrinkled. ‘The smell from your feet is worse than that being given off by our own beloved first spear, if that’s possible.’

‘Well it’s about bloody time. I lost all contact with my feet hours ago.’

Marcus looked up at Morban’s words to see that the fort’s gates had opened to allow the Britons to march out into a grey dawn. He turned back and looked out over the ditch at the Sarmatae mustering outside the range of Qadir’s bows. The Hamians’ accurate shooting had clearly discouraged any attempt to rebuild the ramp by moonlight, but now that day was breaking he knew the enemy archers would shower missiles onto both wall and fort in order to allow the workers forward with their buckets of soil.

‘They’ll finish that ramp today, no matter what they have to throw at it.’

His deputy stamped down the century’s line with a curse at his frozen feet.

‘Shall I get the men ready to move, Centurion?’

Marcus nodded his assent, watching as the stocky chosen man made his way down the ditch’s line, shouting commands to his men and readying them to pull out of the position. Tribune Leontius came forward with his men, looking out over the ditch’s earth wall at the ramp and smiling happily at the state of the earthwork.

‘Well done, Tungrians, that’s put a knot in their cocks. It’ll take them a good long time to get that rebuilt and ready for an attack. And now, if you don’t mind, we’ll reclaim this rather desirable property back from you. There’s hot food waiting for you in your barracks.’

The soldiers formed up and marched away from the wall without a second glance. With his men back in their barracks, and for the most part asleep as soon as they had consumed the meal that had been prepared for them, Marcus made a swift visit to the hospital to see his wife, who took one look at his exhausted face and sent him away to his bed. Awakened seemingly only minutes later by a heavy knocking, he opened the door to find Julius waiting for him.

‘What time is it?’

The first spear hooked a thumb over his shoulder.

‘Mid-afternoon. The Sarmatae are only an hour or so from completing their ramp, so Leontius and the tribune have agreed to bring our boys forward and make a stand beside the Britons. Tell Quintus to wake your men and warm them up ready to fight, then join me on the fort wall. The tribune wants us to have a look at the field of battle from an elevated position before we take up our positions.’

When the young Roman reached the walls he found Julius and Scaurus watching the enemy in silence. The duel between the barbarian archers and the Thracians was continuing in a desultory manner, although most of the enemy’s attention was now focused on keeping the Britons’ heads down, as the ramp inched closer to their wall. Looking along the wall’s length Marcus realised that the bolt throwers were no longer sending their heavy missiles into the mass of slaves toiling at the earthwork.

‘It seems that the remaining torsion bars have broken. Leontius was here a few minutes ago muttering something about dealing with a certain legion artillery officer, not that he’ll ever get the chance.’ The tribune fell silent, staring pensively out at the mass of humanity being driven forward behind the enemy archers. ‘All of that murder last night. . and we might as well not have bothered. There are thousands of them.’

Julius nodded.

‘This Purta must have scoured the entire plain for every slave he could buy or take. No wonder he was happy to spend his labour so cheaply yesterday if he had this lot in reserve to throw at us. Obviously he came prepared.’ He turned to Scaurus, straightening his back and saluting. ‘The cohorts will be ready for action soon enough, Tribune. I suggest we parade them outside the barracks and get ready to sell ourselves as expensively as we can. It’s been a pleasure serving with you, sir, and. .’

His eyes narrowed as a distant trumpet sounded from the west, beyond the barbarians, answered a moment later by another which seemed to come from the hills to the east. Scaurus leant forward over the wall’s parapet, ignoring the risk of a Sarmatae arrow to stare out over the enemy host.

‘That sounded like one of ours. .’

Leontius hurried up the steps behind them, pulling on his helmet and joining Scaurus at the parapet with a look of disbelief. The horns sounded again, and as they looked out over the corpse-strewn battlefield Julius gestured at a point beyond the enemy host.

‘My eyes may be deceiving me, but those look like ours. .’

Staring out across the Sarmatae host, Marcus found what Julius was indicating, a line of armoured men made tiny by the distance.

‘They’re not advancing.’

Leontius snorted in dark amusement.

‘Nor would you be, Centurion, if you came round that corner and found yourself face-to-face with that many barbarian horsemen. I’d imagine that they’re working like madmen to get their stakes in the ground, while their officers frantically try to decide whether they should attack, defend or just make a run for it and pretend that they were never here.’

Julius glanced at him with an amused look, then turned to Marcus.

‘Your eyes are sharper than mine, Centurion. What emblem can you see on their banners?’

The Roman stared out at the legion’s rapidly forming line.

‘A lion, First Spear.’

The burly senior centurion turned back to Leontius with a smirk.

‘In which case, I think you can stop worrying about those lads turning tail, that’s the Thirteenth Gemina out there. First Spear Secundus won’t be countenancing anything of the sort.’

‘Excellent work, Gaius! Young Leontius will go back to Rome with a ringing commendation, and doubtless a quick step up the ladder for stopping the Sarmatae for long enough that we could bottle them up. He was decent enough to brief me properly as to what your men did last night, and from what I’ve heard you clearly played a key part in this whole thing.’

Legatus Albinus had ridden into the fort from the east just before dark at the head of two cohorts of legionaries, ending any lingering risk that the Sarmatae might attempt one last all-out drive to cross the ditch and escape the trap in which they were caught. He and Scaurus were alone in the fort’s headquarters while Leontius assisted the Fifth Macedonica’s broad stripe tribune in bringing his men forward through the fort to hold the obstacle overnight. Scaurus shook his head disparagingly at his mentor’s praise.

‘We were in the right place at the right time, Legatus, that’s all it was. Tribune Leontius is the man who made this fort ready to repel any attack up the valley, which is more than many of his colleagues might have done.’

Albinus smiled knowingly.

‘Understood, young man. But I’ll make sure your part in this is recognised, one way or another. You’re too good an officer to be left running an auxiliary cohort for much longer.’

‘Thank you, sir. And as for our enemy?’

The legatus smiled broadly.

‘Once Leontius’s dispatch alerted us to the fact that we’d been fed misleading intelligence, Pescennius Niger and I agreed that our only course of action was to advance through the mountains, and come at the enemy from the rear, using Stone Fort as the anvil for our hammer.’ He paused, raising his eyebrows at the tribune. ‘Tremendously risky, of course. What if we’d got here and found that the Sarmatae had already smashed through you, and were rampaging off into the province, eh? That’s the kind of outcome that has a man falling on his own sword, so I really can’t imagine what can have possessed my colleague to accept such a hasty course of action, although I suspect his first spear might have played a large part in overcoming his natural caution. He is a rather fearsome individual once his temper’s aroused, and since he’d been urging caution as to how much of the intelligence from within the Sarmatae camp we believed, he was practically ablaze when we discovered the truth.’

He grinned triumphantly at Scaurus, waving a hand in the air in the manner of a man accepting the plaudits of a grateful people.

‘But it seems to have worked out rather well, all things considered. The only ways out of this valley other than through this fort are the two valleys that combine to the west of here, and we have them both blocked by large forces of infantry behind nice strong turf walls and with plenty of wooden stakes set up to prevent any foolishness by the enemy’s horsemen. There are auxiliary cohorts dug in on the high ground on all sides with archer and bolt-thrower support, so if the enemy do try to make a run for it over the hills we’ll chop them to ribbons. And if they try to renew their attack on Stone Fort then we’ll just swing the hammer and smash them against your walls. We have the Sarmatae hemmed in, Gaius, and Purta’s balls in the palm of our hand, which will make the agreement of terms that favour Rome’s interests relatively simple if he doesn’t want to find his head on a sharpened stick.’

Scaurus raised an eyebrow.

‘You’ll make peace with him, after what he’s done here, Legatus?’

Albinus smiled beneficently back at him.

‘Oh yes, I have explicit orders from the provincial governor, and more than likely from the emperor above him. It’s not in Rome’s interests to slaughter these people, Tribune, because if we do we’ll just end up with the next generation of the little bastards champing at the bit to come and get their revenge. Whereas if we make peace and then police it strongly enough they’ll just have to get on with their lives, a good part of which will consist of buying as many of our luxuries as they can afford. They’ll pay with gold, and horses, and whatever crop they can spare, and I need hardly remind you that the empire stands in dire need of all three of those commodities. On top of which, they’ll make an effective buffer against barbarians from further north, whereas if we liquidate them we’ll have to start afresh with whoever moves in to claim their tribal lands. And Mithras knows that every bloody barbarian starts out thinking he can push his way into Rome if he kicks at the door with enough force. The governor believes it’s better to deal with people who’ve already learned their lesson the hard way, at the hands of men like you and I, and who’s to say he’s wrong? So yes, we’ll negotiate a peace treaty with Purta and send him on his way, with the appropriate hostages taken, of course.’

‘And the gold that my idiot colleague Belletor saw fit to bestow upon Balodi? It’s fairly clear that he cemented his usurped position as king by making an offering of the coin to Purta in return for his backing.’

Albinus shook his head, making the warding sign at the mention of the dead tribune’s name.

‘Domitius Belletor doesn’t seem to have been much of a judge of men, does he? May the gods preserve us both from a misjudgement of that order. If what you say is true, then Purta can buy his release from the trap we have him in with gold as well as the lives of his children. A day or two watching our soldiers fortify the hills around his camp ought to provide him with a decent enough incentive.’

The two legati met Purta on the far side of a newly constructed bridge over the fort’s western ditch, inside the hollow square of the Thirteenth Legion’s five thousand men, whose first spear oversaw proceedings with a sharp eye and a sharper tongue. The auxiliary cohorts that had defended the fort lined the ditch that had seen so much bloodshed, their shields four ranks deep behind the earth wall in a deliberately impressive show of strength. The legion’s centurions served as the senior officers’ honour guard, a circle of sixty hard, forbidding faces into which Purta and his fellow nobles walked with their swords held out in both hands, as instructed. Clodius Albinus waited in silence as the king and his men presented their weapons to the legion’s first spear, who subjected them to a careful inspection in order to confirm that they were of sufficient quality to count as the first peace offerings. With the enemy leaders disarmed, Albinus stepped forward to face the defeated Sarmatae ruler. He looked the king up and down with a grim stare before speaking.

‘This is not a negotiation, King Purta, and the terms I am about to impose upon you are not a proposal. To put it bluntly, you have gambled and lost. You chose to chance your arm against the army of the greatest empire the world has ever seen, and you have failed. You can either have peace, on our terms, or you can return to your people and tell them to arm themselves for a short and brutal fight. Our archers and bolt throwers will rain sharp iron into you from all sides, and when we judge the time is right we will send our legionaries forward to grind out any last vestiges of resistance. Then, when we’ve inevitably won that fight, given we have your exits barred and men on the high ground to all sides, your people will be enslaved. Not just these men here, but your entire nation. I am ordered by the emperor either to make peace, here, now and on Rome’s terms, or to empty your lands of every man, woman and child in order to enable the settlement of more amenable neighbours. If you make it necessary I will simply erase your tribe from history and repopulate your land.’

He raised a piece of paper.

‘The terms the emperor offers you are these. Firstly, you will return the gold which was recently paid to your servant Balodi as a sign of good faith. Any of the gold which has been dispersed will be replaced from your own treasury. Any shortfall thereafter will be recompensed to the empire in the form of slaves, each of whom will be reckoned in at half the market rate to account for the likely oversupply and consequent fall in their sale price.

‘Secondly, you will provide Rome with a further five thousand horsemen for service on the empire’s borders. Thirdly, you will present your own children and those of your nobles to act as hostages. They will be raised in Rome, trained to be model Roman citizens, and their safety will be the reward you will earn for your compliance with the terms of this treaty. We will return them when they are ready to rule in your places, at which point you will abdicate in their favour. Fourthly, you will submit to frequent and robust policing of these terms by our legions, which will be free to march across your lands without hindrance. Any gathering of more than one hundred men will be conducted under the control of Roman officers, and any such gathering which is unsupervised will be considered as an act of war. And lastly, you will free every Roman citizen currently enslaved by your people immediately. And let me warn you, Purta, that if in the course of policing this treaty our officers discover any evidence of continued enslavement of even a single Roman citizen, they will be authorised to burn the settlement in question to the ground, and to enslave every man, woman and child they can lay their hands on.’

He looked the Sarmatae king up and down with a look of disdain.

‘You have no choice in the matter of these demands other than whether to submit to them peacefully or at the point of a spear with your own shipment to Rome for public execution a consequent inevitability. Decide now.’

Purta bowed his head briefly in submission.

‘I will comply with these terms.’

Albinus nodded tersely, passing the paper to his clerk.

‘Wise, Purta, given that you have no real choice. Be very clear though, that this peace will be policed by men like these.’ Albinus waved an arm at the centurions arrayed about them. ‘Rome will have peace on its own terms, with routine patrols across your lands to ensure that no further stupidity of the sort we’ve seen here is allowed to take root. You will be king, but your position will be underwritten and controlled by Roman arms, and you will be subject to very close scrutiny.’

Purta nodded again, his face set in impassive lines. Albinus gestured to the surviving nobles from Balodi’s tribe, huddled under the Tungrians’ spears on the far side of the bridge.

‘These men, however, do not come under the terms of this agreement. Their former king made a formal agreement to remove them from the war and to return to his homeland, a pledge that was agreed by all of his nobles but then repudiated by his father’s brother when he murdered Galatas. The king’s murderer was then foolish enough to bring them to your side in defiance of this agreement, and he has therefore doomed them all to slavery, without exception. They will carry out whatever labour Rome sees fit for them for the rest of their lives, and will content themselves that the alternative was a slow and bloody execution. I intend to sell them into the service of Rome’s mines in the valley of the Ravenstone. They can spend the rest of their miserable lives tearing gold from the mountains in the service of the empire, and providing her with the treasure she needs to remain strong in the face of threats like these. They will all march south to the mine under guard, with one exception, and none of them will ever be freed to return to their homes. This is the price that must be paid by every man who reneges on an agreement with Rome. One man, however, has committed crimes too great for me to ignore, or to punish with simple servitude. Bring him forward!’

He stared into Balodi’s face with an expression of contempt as the king was forced to his knees at the edge of the circle of centurions.

‘This man agreed a treaty with Rome without ever intending to honour either its terms or its spirit. He enslaved hundreds of Roman citizens, and therefore presided over their degradation and murder, and it gives me great pleasure to order his execution here and now, as a salutary lesson for you all. Tribune?’

He gestured to Scaurus, who nodded to Julius. The first spear turned to Marcus, extending a hand to point at Balodi.

‘Centurion, exact the justice you promised the veteran, a slow and painful death to match his family’s agony.’

Only Marcus and Balodi heard the first spear’s muttered command, and the tribal leader staggered on legs suddenly gone weak as Marcus lifted him by the collar of his rough tunic and pushed him forward into the ring of men. Albinus gestured to the Sarmatae chieftain with a look of scorn.

‘Let this serve as an example to you, Purta, of the treatment you can expect if you make the mistake of repaying Rome’s generous lenience in this matter with anything other than the greatest respect. Centurion?’

Marcus put a boot into the back of Balodi’s knees and forced him to the ground in a kneeling position. Reaching into a pouch on his belt he pulled out a small object wrapped in rags, carefully allowing the protective cloth to fall away and reveal what it was he held. Albinus was speaking again, pacing towards the kneeling king but aiming his words at an ashen-faced Purta.

‘This man not only bit the empire’s beneficent hand, in spite of the generous terms that he was offered to put an end to his tribe’s attempts at capturing the Ravenstone valley mines, he was also responsible for a crime against the Roman people. Having promised that he would ensure the release of the Roman citizens he held as slaves, he then forced them into the forefront of the attack on this place. You are both responsible for the deaths of innocent men, women and children who had a right to imperial protection, and it is in their name that we now punish him. Be grateful that I don’t have you share his fate, and be assured that if you ever attempt to rise against Rome in the future, the justice you are about to see delivered to this man will surely be visited upon you.’ His gaze swept the men standing around the king, their eyes fixed on Balodi as he knelt before them. ‘Upon all of you, and your families.’

Marcus held the small object he had taken from his pouch aloft and then put it under Balodi’s nose, nodding grimly as the helpless man pulled his head away from its pungent stench. Albinus smiled at the prisoner’s horrified expression, waving a dismissive hand at him.

‘I would have preferred to provide the shades of this man’s departed victims with the compensation of their murderer suffering a rather more protracted punishment. Scourging, crucifixion and eventual dismemberment are the empire’s prescribed means of executing men such as this, but I am persuaded that this alternative means of retribution is suitably fitting in this man’s case.’

He gestured to Marcus, who took out the veteran’s pendant and wiped it carefully down the blade of the poisoned arrowhead he had pulled from his shield weeks before, staining the metal with its yellow-green coating of poison. Jerking Balodi’s head back, he pushed the metal disc into his mouth and then wrapped a hand over the tribal leader’s lips to prevent him from spitting it out. Julius stepped forward and put his boot into Balodi’s stomach hard enough to double the Sarmatae over, and both men watched as he writhed with the pain of the kick. Staring up at the centurions, his eyes widened as he realised that the metal disc was no longer in his mouth, and Marcus nodded down at him with a look of grim satisfaction. Albinus walked across to the stricken nobleman, looking down impassively as Balodi’s eyes opened wide with the realisation of his doom.

‘My officers tell me that while even a small dose of this poison administered via a cut to the skin will kill a man quickly, ingestion is rumoured to be a good deal slower and more painful.’ Albinus turned back to Purta, whose face was now even whiter than before. ‘The victim, they tell me, soils himself. He struggles to breathe, and he is afflicted with severe pains in the stomach as the poison works on his organs. It will take Balodi hours to die, time during which he will be guarded by my men here in order to prevent any attempt to end his life in a more merciful manner. And if by some chance he manages to survive this dose of his own men’s poison, the process will simply be repeated. Let this be a warning to you all.’