Wounds of Honour

10

Marcus woke again in the middle of the next morning, his head relatively clear, and his stomach growling for food. Clodia Drusilla took one look at him and ordered a bed bath and a meal, both administered by a stone-faced orderly who responded to Marcus’s attempts at conversation with monosyllabic grunts. Hot water, a borrowed blade and a clean tunic lifted his spirits, even if he was still weak enough to fall back on to his bed exhausted afterwards, and a small meal of bread, dried fish and vegetables left him replete. He slept again almost immediately, and was woken by a hand gently shaking his shoulder.

It was Licinius, the Petriana’s prefect, smiling down at him with a glint of triumph. Dressed in a mud-stained tunic and armour, he had clearly come to the hospital directly from the saddle. The shutter was closed, and Licinius was carrying a lamp, adding its illumination to that of the lamp already burning by the bed.

‘Ah, there you are, Centurion.’

Marcus pulled himself up on to his elbows, subsiding back on to the pillow that his superior hastily pushed beneath his straining body.

‘The orderly tried to send me away. Now I’ve seen you, I think I understand why. Are you up to talking?’

Marcus declined the chance to put the conversation off once more, too tired to be bothered with his own safety any longer.

‘Yes, Prefect, we can talk, but tell me, what time is it? What’s happening out there?’

The other man sat on the short stool provided for the purpose, hunching forward to hear Marcus’s tired whisper. As he opened his mouth to speak again, Felicia burst through the door, her mouth a thin white-lipped slash in a face pale with anger. The prefect leapt to his feet, bowing respectfully.

‘Clodia Drusilla, my dear, what a pleasure to see you again. I…’

She pushed a fist into his face, making him step back in surprise, almost tumbling over the stool.

‘You have no right or permission to be here, and as this officer’s doctor I’m ordering you to get out. Now!’

Marcus raised a hand, forestalling her outburst.

‘It’s all right, Doctor, just a friendly conversation…’

She turned on him, wagging a finger threateningly.

‘That isn’t your decision, Centurion, and besides…’

‘No more running.’

‘What?’

‘No more running from the truth. Not from an honourable Roman prefect.’

‘But…’

Her reproach ran dry, leaving her staring helplessly at the bedridden centurion for a moment. She turned and left the room in silence. Licinius sat down again, raising an eyebrow at Marcus.

‘Clodia Drusilla seems very protective of you, young man. Perhaps y’should consider your position very carefully with regard to that young lady. I happen to be acquainted with her husband well enough to know the way he’ll behave if he suspects his property is being coveted by another…’

Marcus looked at him questioningly, until the older man shrugged his shoulders.

‘Never mind. Just watch yourself there. As to the time, it’s late in the afternoon, two days after you took what was by all accounts quite a thump on the head. As to what’s happening outside…’

He paused, rubbing his tired face with a wrinkled hand.

‘Calgus came down the North Road, burned out everything down to Noisy Valley, let his men loose on White Strength and burned that down too, then retreated back up the road and vanished into the landscape, Mars damn him for eternity. I’ve got patrols out looking for the warband, but for the time being they’re off the bloody map. Now that the barbarians have left the scene of the crime, Sixth Legion has come forward from the blocking position they were holding to the south, marched through here at lunchtime and thundered off over the horizon to some secret camp or other they scouted out a while ago. Where the other legions have got to, Mars only knows. But we, young man, have subjects closer to home to discuss, do we not?’

Marcus nodded, giving in to the inescapable.

‘Firstly, as to your great secret, don’t trouble yourself with the revelation, I’ve already questioned Equitius and got the truth out of him.’

Marcus’s eyes opened wide.

‘You…’

The officer waved a hand dismissively, shaking his head in amusement.

‘Y’clearly don’t appreciate my position here, young man. I command the Petriana cavalry wing and I’m the senior prefect of all the Wall garrisons. I’m already a senator as a result of an imperial promotion after a dirty little skirmish a few years ago, and I have some very powerful friends in Rome. When I told your commanding officer to spill the beans he did what he was told, related the whole story and offered to resign his command and fall on his sword. Because he’s a realist. The man that lives in Yew Grove may nominally command the Wall garrison, executing the governor’s orders, but as long as I’m in place these units answer to me, right up to the point where Sixth Legion comes forward into the line and he’s in a position to take effective control.’

Marcus lay back, strangely relieved at not having to hide from the senior officer any longer.

‘Did you take Equitius’s command?’

Licinius snorted his laughter.

‘Of course I didn’t, y’fool! I can’t afford to go dumping effective officers just because they happen to have an eye for a good officer!’

‘But…’

The prefect leaned in close, half whispering into Marcus’s ear, his patrician affectations suddenly replaced with a harder tone.

‘But nothing, man. I told you I’ve got friends in Rome, men of influence and stature. They write to me regularly about the city and what’s happening around them, and their letters have steadily become more pessimistic. Some of them even write anonymously, using recollection of our shared experiences as their identification, for fear of their words being read by the wrong person. Our new emperor is in the sway of dangerous men, and is steadily undermining the rules that have underpinned our society for almost a century. Your father and his brother were his victims, murdered for their land and to silence a potential dissenting voice in the Senate. As a loyal citizen of Rome I should, of course, arrest you, and Equitius and his First Spear, and hand you over to Sixth Legion for trial and execution.’

He stopped speaking, and looked away from Marcus, out of the room’s window.

‘As an officer of Rome, with a prior duty to the defence of this province, it is my judgement that I will do no such thing.’

‘But you risk losing everything.’

‘Centurion, there are two or three warbands out there that amount to about thirty thousand fighting men, all of them fired by the desire to liberate their lands from Roman influence and get their cocks up some nice soft flesh in the process. Against that mass of angry warriors we total ten thousand regular troops and two thousand cavalry, plus another eighteen thousand legionaries — if the legions make an appearance in time to join in the fun. If we get it wrong, I could be dead inside the week, in which case my failure to report your presence here will be inconsequential. My duty is first and foremost to the troops under my command, and to the people that depend on our protection to prevent those savages from killing and shagging their way all the way down to Yew Grove.

‘And besides, quite apart from yourself, there are two other good men involved at the very least. Your First Spear is an outstanding soldier, and Equitius… Equitius has something even more special. It wouldn’t surprise me to see him reach very high office indeed, if he comes through this thing intact. You’ll understand when you’re my age…’

He got up and walked to the door, reassuming his former aristocratic bearing.

‘Anyway, you’re a good officer, “Marcus Tribulus Corvus”, good enough to take advantage of your luck. Make the most of that fortune in the coming days, ride it to the best possible advantage. We shall have need of your brand of audacity if we’re to prevent this Calgus from nailing our heads to his roof beams. Just don’t give me reason to regret this decision.’

He left, raising an eyebrow at Felicia, who glared at his departing back before hurrying back into Marcus’s room, appraising him with a frank concern he found touching.

‘He knows your secret, then?’

‘Yes, he put the question directly to my prefect.’

‘And…?’

‘I’m to return to duty as soon as I’m fit. It seems that live officers are of more value than dead traitors at this time.’

She exhaled noisily, sitting down at the end of his bed.

‘I’m pleased. I’ve known him for long enough to be aware that he has his own very particular set of principles, but I wasn’t sure how he’d react to your situation.’

‘He said that your husband…’

He stopped, unwilling to embarrass the woman.

‘Is a violent man? Would react without thinking if he thought there might be some slur upon his manhood? He’s a good judge of character. Not everyone sees through that veneer of “hail fellow, well met” that Prefect Bassus uses to mask his real nature. Did he think that we were lovers?’

Marcus blushed, unable to meet her questioning gaze.

‘Yes, I think he did.’

She laughed, putting her head back. The laughter stung Marcus’s pride, making his voice harsher than he would have wanted.

‘Not so funny, madam, you’re a beautiful woman. He can see that any man would find you attractive…’

He hoped that she wouldn’t detect either his discomfort with her amusement or his almost total lack of physical experience of women. Her laughter died away, and she returned his indignant glare with a gentle smile.

‘On the contrary, Centurion, it wasn’t that prospect I was laughing at. The old proverb came to mind — “Better to be strangled for a sheep than a goat”. If you get my meaning?’

She turned and left, the secret smile staying on her face until she was back in her tiny office, making the duty orderly raise his eyebrows in mute curiosity.

Dubnus arrived an hour later, standing awkwardly in the doorway until Marcus beckoned him in. The big man came to attention at the bottom of the bed, in which Marcus was now sitting, reading a borrowed scroll of Caesar’s writings on his campaigns in Gaul, launching into a speech he had clearly prepared with painstaking care.

‘Centurion, I request permission to be allocated another century, at a lower rank if necessary…’

Marcus sat bolt upright, making the ache in his head throb a little harder. He swayed for a second with the pain, causing Dubnus to leap around the bed and steady him by the arm. The pain subsided after a moment. He motioned the soldier to sit down, and took a moment to wind the scroll up, looking into the other man’s stonily fixed face. What reason could his deputy have for wanting to leave the 9th?

‘Why, Dubnus?’

The chosen man knotted his fingers, and his eyes blinked rapidly, betraying the turmoil beneath the surface.

‘A chosen man’s main job is protect his officer, and…’

‘Bullshit!’

The roar surprised Marcus himself, and sent another wave of pain through his head, but the rush of relief he felt in discovering the cause of his deputy’s unease mixed powerfully with his panic at the prospect of losing the man. Dubnus flinched back on the chair, his eyes widening at the sudden display of anger.

‘Your job is to be my deputy, to stand behind the century with your pole’s end in their backs, and ensure that the Ninth moves in accordance with my commands, steady the men when they waver…’

He stopped for a moment, and reached for the water cup by his bed, drinking deeply.

‘… and that’s a job you perform superbly well. Think back, Dubnus. When I decided to go out and rescue our runner, without you at the back of the column our men would have turned and run for the safety of the Wall before we’d got two hundred yards out into the open. They were shit scared, and so for that matter was I. It was only your voice behind them that made them keep moving.’

‘But in the forest…’

‘I managed to make enough noise to bring the tribesmen down on us. That was nothing to do with you.’

‘And I failed to stay with you.’

‘We were fighting for our lives, in the darkness, against superior numbers. It’s a wonder we aren’t both stuck in here, or somewhere worse. Look, forget it, Dubnus, it wasn’t your fault, and you’re not leaving the Ninth. Relax, man, you’re making my headache worse! Besides, someone stepped over me and held the blue-noses off…’

Dubnus winced at the attempted humour, then became serious again, the look on his face stopping Marcus mid-sentence.

‘Which is the other reason why I should leave the century. It wasn’t me that saved you, it was…’

‘Yes?’

‘… Antenoch.’

‘Antenoch?!’

Dubnus nodded miserably.

‘He came out of the trees behind us, jumped over you and fought off the tribesmen until relief arrived. Killed three men, and cut the sword arm off another…’

He tailed off, watching Marcus intently.

‘Antenoch followed us into the trees without y- us noticing?’

Dubnus nodded again, his face lengthening. Marcus felt his grip on his self-control starting to slip.

‘After you refused to let him patrol with us?’

‘Yes.’

The reply was no more than an ashamed whisper, and for a second Marcus had the sense of talking to a naughty child. He kept control of a desire to laugh uncontrollably by the skin of his teeth.

‘Good.’

‘Eh!?’

‘I said good, and I meant it. Your feud with him has gone on long enough. From now on you’ll trust him implicitly, as I evidently have every reason to do… where is he now?’

‘He’ll come to the hospital later. I told him to wait until I was back in camp.’

Marcus lay back, his head buzzing with pain.

‘Very well. Tell him to come up and see me after the evening meal, I need to sleep some more now. And Dubnus…’

‘Centurion?’

‘Don’t even consider leaving the Ninth again without winning a vine stick first… unless you want me to have you… have you…’

He slipped into sleep. When he woke again the pain in his head was almost gone, and Antenoch was sitting quietly at his side, reading the borrowed scroll. Seeing his centurion awake, he furled the scroll, shaking it in Marcus’s face.

‘And what sort of reading matter is this for a sick man? Besides, what the divine Julius actually knew about fighting the Gauls would probably have fitted on your pocket tablet with room to spare. There’s more to warfare than looking good on a horse and knowing when to send in the cavalry. I’d like to have seen him stand in a shield wall with the shit flying and retain his famous composure.’

Marcus laughed at him, refusing to be drawn.

‘Oh good, you’re better. You must be, or the good lady Felicia wouldn’t be talking about letting you out in the morning.’

‘Don’t be so familiar, Antenoch, unless the lady’s given you permission to use her forename. One of these days you’ll talk yourself into a mess I can’t get you out of.’

‘Oh, the lady and I are on first-name terms, Centurion, from the long conversations we had mooning over your sickbed, before you got bored with sleeping all the time. Conversations, I might add, that lead me to the belief that Felicia entertains feelings for you that go beyond those that might be expected between doctor and patient. You play it right, you could be hiding the sausage…’

Marcus’s irritation boiled over, his finger stopping an inch from Antenoch’s nose.

‘Enough! You’ll push me too far, you insolent bastard! Credit me with some sense of decorum! She’s a married woman, for Jupiter’s sake. Whether I want her or not, there are rules by which our lives are run.’

To his dismay, the Briton collapsed against the wall in giggles.

‘Rules! Gods above, listen to him…’

He wiped his eyes theatrically, shaking his head in mock amazement.

‘… and you a Roman citizen born and bred? Don’t you know you people practically invented adultery?’

They stared at each other in angry silence for a moment, neither willing to concede. At length Antenoch spoke again.

‘Anyway, be that as it may, the lady Felicia, who I am sure has led the most blameless of lives, entertains more than a hint of affection for yourself. And that’s official.’

Marcus rose to the bait.

‘What do you mean, official?’

His clerk smiled slyly.

‘Her orderly told me so. We shared a mug of beer last night, after he was off duty; call it a scouting mission on your behalf, if you like. He’s been with her for a year and a half down at Fair Meadow, helping her put damaged Second Tungrians together again, and he reckons he knows her better than her husband ever will…’

Marcus shook his head, aghast.

‘I really shouldn’t be listening to this…’

‘But you will, because you feel for her just as much! I warned you I’d always speak my mind! She hates her husband because he won’t recognise her abilities, and wants her to play the submissive little wife for him. Another fool that thought he could change a woman once they were married…

‘Anyway, he told me that she gets all misty eyed when she thinks he isn’t looking, and he’s pretty sure you’re the cause. Which I can understand, a nice young boy in uniform like you. And what’s more…’

Marcus raised his arms in mock surrender.

‘No more! I’ve heard all I need to. You’re quite impossible, and I’m tiring fast just listening to you. Run along and play your games with the orderly, and leave me in peace. We can discuss this again once I’ve got a grip of my vine stick.’

Antenoch got to his feet, his smile undaunted.

‘You’d only break the stick. Sleep well, Centurion, but remember what I’ve told you.’

He went to the door, looked out into the corridor and then turned back, as if on an afterthought.

‘And if she does decide she can’t resist, I think you’ll owe me an apology. Perhaps we could even have a small wager on the matter?’

He ducked round the door frame, as Marcus threw the scroll at his head. Annius sat in his tent throughout the afternoon, working through a sheaf of tablets and sending his staff around the camp to find the items he required, until he was convinced that the cohort had all of the supplies required for a deployment into hostile territory. Spearheads had already been purchased from the local armourer, spare swords traded for surplus sets of mail, and generally scarce boots quietly stolen from a neighbouring unit’s store. All might be required in the next few days, and he had no intention of inviting the wrath of men he would depend upon to stand between him and thousands of angry barbarians.

Darkness fell, and he worked on by the light of half a dozen lamps, snacking from a plate of cakes purchased from Tacitus’s bakery, until a disturbance outside the tent caught his attention. Rising to go to the flap, he received his clerk in the belly, the man literally thrown into the tent from outside. They fell on to his table, scattering tablets, cakes and lamps, plunging the interior into darkness. The flap was pulled open, the man standing in the opening silhouetted in the light of the torches that burned around the camp.

‘Stores officer Annius?’

The cohort’s guards would notice, would come to his rescue. He gathered his dignity, getting to his feet and trying to make out the indistinct figure at the tent’s door.

‘Yes. What…’

The other man reached into the tent, grasping him by the neck and pulling him out through the door, choking him with the pinch-hold on his windpipe. Close up, in the light of the torches, he was evidently officer class, dressed in cavalry armour, and with a body that Annius would have bet filled his cuirass without any trouble. He leaned in close to speak into the stores officer’s face, his eyes shining in the torchlight and a hand sliding down to his waist, gripping the hilt of his dagger.

‘I told your clerk, and I’ll tell you, shut your face if you want to live. I could slit your throats and be away from here before your guards woke up. Understand?’

His vision greying from the vice-like grip on his throat, Annius nodded limply.

‘Good.’

The grip relaxed, allowing him to gulp in some air. His arm was grasped, leaving him no alternative but to accompany the man as he led a winding path through the tents. Without a cloak he began to shiver in the night’s cold air. After a minute’s swift walk the officer pushed him into a tent, lit brightly by several large lamps, and followed, placing his bulk between Annius and the door flap. A younger man, also in uniform, sat idly in a chair at the tent’s far end. A thin purple stripe ran along his tunic’s hem, and he was attired in magnificently polished armour. In the lamplight Annius read his face in an instant, finding the intensity and intelligence of a predator under a shock of blond hair.

‘Well, storeman, do you know who I am?’

He shook his head, realising that he should speak, and chanced a response.

‘A senior officer, sir, a legion tribune to judge from your rank…’

‘Quite so. And more too. You’ll doubtless have heard of our emperor, Commodus?’

‘Yes, Tribune.’

Did this have something to do with that young bastard of a centurion? What had Tacitus been broadcasting to the world?

‘My name is Titus Tigidius Perennis. My father is the praetorian prefect of Rome. I carry a special commission from the emperor…’

He took a small scroll from inside his tunic, and waved it at Annius.

‘I’ve read it so many times I can remember the wording as if it were open in front of me… “find and bring to justice any person guilty of treason against the throne, of whatever rank, within the Imperial Government of Britannia. Command the services of any man required to aid in this task, of whatever rank, on penalty of death for refusal.” On penalty of death, storeman.

‘There’s more, but it’s only detail by comparison. I came to Britain to serve as a tribune in the Sixth Legion, under Legatus Sollemnis, a man suspected of harbouring treacherous sympathies with certain Roman enemies of the state. Enemies since dealt with in ways fitting to their unveiled treason.’

He let the implicit threat hang in the air for a moment before getting to his feet and walking across to Annius, staring him in the eyes before restarting his discourse.

‘I found the legion well trained and ready for war, the legatus obviously competent, but curiously reticent on the subject of his emperor, unwilling to discuss a subject he might have felt could trip him up. And so I waited, content to work in preparation for a war we were both convinced was close upon us. Then, a few months ago, came word that a young traitor, son of one of the men arrested for treason, had run for cover, and was seeking to join the Sixth as an anonymous centurion. Legatus Sollemnis played it straight, sending the boy back south by night as instructed by the governor, giving my men a chance to deal with him on the road. Someone, whether with the legatus’s blessing or not, killed a cavalry decurion and two of his men sent to deal with the traitor. Worse, they tortured the decurion for information while he lay dying and then escaped into the open country, almost certainly with the traitor in tow. After which disappointing events nothing was heard of either the outlaw or whoever aided him. Until, perhaps, now…’

He turned away, pacing down the tent’s length before turning back and speaking again.

‘The decurion they killed was a respected man in these parts, first in line for promotion to first spear with the Asturians. Who, you might have heard, have sworn to a man to have their revenge on the killer, whenever and wherever the chance arises. This man…’ He gestured to the officer filling the tent’s doorway. ‘… has a particular interest in taking the killer’s blood, since the man was his older brother. Now, a contact of mine within the fort tells me that you have information on the subject which I might find useful. He recommended I speak with you with all dispatch.’

He paced back to the terrified storekeeper, staring into his eyes.

‘Now, you are, at this moment, weighing up whether to tell me the truth or not. Let’s face it, I’m here tonight and gone in the morning, while your First Spear will always be there, and eager for revenge if he thinks you’ve betrayed him in such a way.’

He turned to the decurion and nodded. A pale sword slid from its scabbard, the edge winking in the lamplight.

‘The decurion here, however, is another matter. He wants revenge on this traitor, and whoever helped him, and he’ll be very upset indeed if he feels that you’re obstructing his path to justice. So, storeman, your choices are simple — tell me everything you know, here and now, without hiding anything, or they’ll find you face down in the river with a rather nasty hole in your back. It’s really up to you…’

Annius opened his mouth and started talking. Marcus read quietly through the evening, submerging himself in Caesar’s two-hundred-year-old account of his subjugation of Gaul until the shadows lengthened, and the orderly came to light his lamp. After a while straining to make out the characters in the half-darkness became too much of an effort and he rolled up the scroll and slid beneath the blanket, blowing the lamp out to leave the room in darkness. Hovering above sleep’s dark waters, his mind easing down to rest, he thought for a second that he felt a gentle touch on his face, soft enough not to pull him back from the brink of rest, enough to hold him there in a state of uncertain thrill.

The touch came again, and a soft voice spoke soothingly to him as a warm body slipped under the blanket beside him. His body trembled slightly with the sudden realisation, as hands caressed his back and neck, lips finding his ear and gently kissing away the fear. He rolled over to meet her kiss with his own, still stunned at the situation, pausing for breath after a long moment.

‘It would seem that I owe my clerk an apology.’

Felicia renewed the kiss wordlessly, moving her body over his beneath the blanket’s rough folds. Felicia left Marcus’s bed in the early hours, abandoning him to an exhausted, dreamless sleep. He woke long after dawn to the orderly’s persistent shaking of his shoulder.

‘Centurion, there’s a messenger from your cohort waiting outside. Clodia Drusilla grants you her permission to leave the hospital, and has asked me to give you this…’

He directed a significant look towards Marcus, making it quite clear that he could guess at the tablet’s contents. As he left one of Marcus’s men came through the door with a bundle of clothing and equipment tied up in what Marcus quickly recognised as his cloak.

‘Sir, First Spear’s regards, an’ he requests you to rejoin the cohort on the way to the North Road. The horse boys found the barbarians yesterday, an’ we’re moving to attack them…’

Marcus dressed quickly, shoving the tablet into a pocket and grabbing a piece of bread from the breakfast table as he followed the soldier out of the infirmary’s quiet corridors and into the fort’s orderly hubbub. The rest of the man’s tent party were waiting impatiently at the door, their leader saluting smartly at his appearance among them.

‘Morning, sir, good to see you looking better. I hope you’re up to a run this morning, the cohort marched out at the double almost half an hour ago, along with the Second and the Batavians.’

Marcus nodded grimly, tightening his new helmet’s strap until the leather bit into his chin, ignoring the pressure on his still-sensitive scalp, while the men checked that their packs were secure on their carrying poles before hoisting them on to their shoulders along with their spears. A shouted command set them running, a steady trot to which, Marcus was pleased to discover, his body adjusted after only a moment’s protest. Five minutes took them across the fort’s bridge and out of view of the fort, passing through wooded copses and open fields as they climbed the steep hill to the east of the river. Despite the road’s arrow-straight line, Marcus kept a hand on his sword’s hilt, aware that a roving barbarian scouting party would see an officer and eight men as fair game.

Half an hour’s running brought no sight of the cohort, confirmation of Marcus’s mental arithmetic. He had guessed that it would take the best part of another hour to catch the Tungrians, and so it proved, the black snake of men appearing on the horizon as they ran into sight of the crossroads with the North Road.

The tail-end century of the rearmost cohort was clearing the crossroads and heading out through the wall’s open gates as the nine men ran up to it, Marcus recognising their companion unit, the Second Tungrians, with a sudden guilty start. They moved to the verge, padding past the marching soldiers without breaking their pace and ignoring the barrage of catcalls and insults that followed their progress up the line of centuries. At the column’s head Marcus recognised his own cohort, and quickened his pace in response. A voice rang out from behind him, peremptory in its authority.

‘You there! Centurion! A moment!’

He signalled his men to rejoin their colleagues, and then turned reluctantly to face the speaker, walking backwards to keep pace with the column’s leading rank. An officer marched forward from his place alongside the column’s head, extending a hand in greeting. Marcus saluted before taking the offered hand, turning to walk alongside the other man.

‘Quintus Dexter Bassus, prefect, Second Tungrian Cohort. And you, I presume from the look of you, are the First Cohort’s illustrious young cattle-burning centurion?’

Marcus drew on his praetorian etiquette training, recalling his instruction on how best to maintain a respectful posture while escorting a walking dignitary, and turned his torso towards the prefect, nodding his head slightly.

‘Yes, sir…’

He took a deep breath, thinking quickly.

‘… Centurion Two Knives. I prefer to fight with two swords when possible, and the title seems to have stuck.’

‘I’ve heard it… a soldier’s name if ever I heard one. Is there a name that you can share with me?’

‘With pleasure, Prefect. My family name is Corvus.’

‘Well, Centurion Corvus, I can only offer you my inadequate but heartfelt thanks for your rescue of my wife…’

They walked in silence for a moment, the massed rattle on the road of hobnailed boots and the jingle and rattle of harnesses and equipment filling what would otherwise have been an uncomfortable gap in the conversation.

‘The thanks, Prefect, would more appropriately be offered to my century, but nevertheless I am happy to acknowledge them, and to express my pleasure that we were in the right place at the right time.’

The other man pursed his lips, perhaps, Marcus thought, caught between the need to show gratitude for the act and a curiosity as to what Felicia might have said to him during the their time together.

‘You’re too modest, young man. The whole army is talking about the way your century denied the barbarians their supplies, and I owe you a debt of thanks I cannot easily discharge. The gods only know what indignities your fortunate arrival spared my wife.’

‘Prefect, you may be aware that I sustained a head injury during a night patrol two days ago. Your wife was good enough to administer her medical skills to my wound, greatly assisting my recovery. Any debt is thus well repaid.’

The other man stared at him for a moment.

‘A noble sentiment, and more typically Roman than I’m used to from the local officers. I find it refreshing to see a young gentleman accept a position in an auxiliary unit, rather than insisting on serving with the legions. Although I’m surprised that a traditionally minded First Spear like Frontinius would ever accept such a recruit. I wonder, Centurion…’

Marcus willed his face to remain impassive.

‘… if Clodia Drusilla mentioned to you what she was doing over the Wall at such a time?’

Relief flooded his mind at the man’s obvious preoccupation with his woman, followed immediately by the realisation that he was still walking on eggshells.

‘Ah… no, sir, now that you mention it she didn’t tell me, and neither did I have the time to ask. I was preoccupied with getting my men away from danger, and…’

‘And not really your business anyway, eh? Very well, Centurion, since you’re clearly a man of discretion, I can see I shouldn’t delay you from your men any longer. Good day.’

Marcus saluted briskly and turned, relieved to be away without having to face difficult questions regarding either his own provenance or the other man’s wife. Accelerating his pace, he trotted smartly past the tail-end century, the men of the 10th striding along with their axes over their shoulders. As he passed the 10th’s front rank Titus stepped out with his fist raised for the tap.

‘Good work, young Two Knives, you’re the talk of the cohort.’

Marcus reflexively tapped the huge man’s fist with his own, shooting a surprised glance at the big man’s smug smile. Normally he would now have been running alongside his own men, but the 9th were at the column’s head. Otho, striding along beside his 8th Century, simply smiled his battered smile and winked as the young centurion passed. Ahead of him Brutus was walking along backwards at the head of the 7th… applauding? He slapped Marcus on the shoulder as he passed, calling after him.

‘And I thought I was supposed to be the lucky one!’

Rufius’s chosen man was apparently in command of the 6th, and quite sensibly kept his mouth shut and his eyes to the front as a red-faced Marcus hurried past. As he progressed up the column’s length shouts of ribald encouragement from the marching ranks accompanied his progress until he reached the standard, carried in the midst of the 5th Century. Julius was marching at the Fifth’s head with Rufius striding alongside him. His friend’s face widened into a broad smile of welcome.

‘Here’s the young fellow, fresh from his deathbed. Here, Two Knives, clasp hands with me once more.’

Marcus put his hand out, only for Rufius to grasp it eagerly, rolling his eyes.

‘I shook his hand! A real live hero! I won’t ever wash it again…’

Julius nodded to him, his eyes showing a mix of respect and something else that Marcus was hard placed to identify. It looked almost like… concern?

‘How’s your head, Two Knives?’

‘Harder than I thought, thank you, Julius.’

The other man nodded with a sardonic smile.

‘It’s going to have to be, if you’re going to keep on like this.’

Rufius poked Julius in the ribs.

‘He’s just jealous. We’ve spent the last three days patrolling and sitting around bored, not tucked up in hospital with a nice lady doctor to look after our every need.’

Marcus blushed a deeper shade of red, unable to control the reaction, and Rufius pounced on the display, his bearded face split in a disbelieving grin.

‘Ah, so there is something to the rumour?! You lucky bastard! I swear you could fall into shit and come out smelling of myrrh!’

Marcus bit his tongue to prevent a sheepish grin that was hovering on the bounds of his control.

‘A gentleman would never discuss such a question. I’ll talk to you later.’

He set off up the column with his ears still hot under the helmet’s protection, making a mental note to murder his clerk at the first opportunity. The prefect was nowhere to be seen, but Frontinius dropped back from the column’s head as soon as he heard Marcus’s voice, returning the younger man’s salute.

‘You can have your century back now that you’ve caught up with us. Keep them moving at the double march until the signal for a rest comes, and otherwise take your cue from the Raetians ahead. If you see men to the flank, take a good look before you shout — there’s a legion out here somewhere, and I wouldn’t want the Tungrians to be the ones to point the spear at our own side. Keep your eyes open.’

Marcus nodded acknowledgement, then ran to the head of his century, settling into the ground-eating double march, a blessed relief after the morning’s exertion. Antenoch appeared at his shoulder after a moment.

‘Good morning, Centurion, I trust you slept well?’

Marcus’s eyes slitted, daring the man to push his question any farther. Antenoch took the hint.

‘Er, good. I’ve got some bread and dried meat if you’re hungry after your… er… exertions?’

‘Give me the food, Antenoch, and keep your mouth shut. It seems that there are far too many people in this cohort making assumptions about my behaviour without you making it any worse.’

He accepted the food and chewed quickly, wanting it inside him and not in his hands if trouble developed, gave his clerk another withering stare and then dropped down the line of march to talk to Dubnus at the century’s rear.

‘How are they?’

The Briton nodded grimly.

‘Ready.’

‘What was the morning’s briefing?’

‘There’s a lot happened since your bang on the head. The warbands that came south of the Wall didn’t stay long to fight once they found Noisy Valley burnt out and a legion dug in between them and Yew Grove. They’ve retreated to the north, back past Red River apparently. No one knows why. The Sixth Legion followed up and is somewhere north of the Wall. They’ve got cavalry in contact with the blue-noses, so now we’re moving to close them down for a battle. The prefect’s gone to meet the Sixth’s legatus, to agree the overall plan. There’s a big fight waiting for us, and not too far off either.’ Equitius wondered for the hundredth time how Sollemnis had managed to manoeuvre a whole legion through such close country, and, for that matter, why? His escort, a thirty-man detachment from the Asturian cavalry who seemed to have become Tribune Perennis’s personal command, looked nervously to either side of the narrow path, into dense forest vegetation that made vision impossible after no more than a dozen yards. Something took fright deep in the undergrowth and bolted away from the path, making his horse prance nervously for a moment.

‘This rather reminds me of the accounts of the Teutoburger Forest I read as a boy.’

The comment went seemingly unnoticed by the younger man for a long moment, before he responded over his shoulder, not bothering to turn in the saddle.

‘I had the Asturians map this area’s paths during the spring, just in case we needed to move one of the legions round an enemy’s flank, if the Wall were under threat. I’ve got this country etched into my head. Varus made the mistake of advancing into close terrain he’d failed to thoroughly scout. That’s the way to lose a legion or three.’

Equitius scowled at the other man’s back, hating his self-assured swagger. And yet his plan had succeeded brilliantly so far, moving the legion from its blocking position behind the Wall into a hidden temporary fortress from where they could strike at the enemy warbands without warning, given the right opportunity. It was this very opportunity with which Equitius was riding to join the 6th, news that the Petriana had managed to pinpoint the warband’s location. A horseman had galloped into the Cauldron Pool camp the previous afternoon, with news that his detachment had chanced upon the warband’s well-beaten path north of the wreck of the Red River fort. Successful in their stealthy tracking of the enemy formation to its current resting place, they were calling for reinforcement, and quickly, before the warband decided to move again.

That old war horse Licinius had led the rest of the Petriana out an hour later, leaving instructions with Equitius to get the 6th Legion committed in their support as soon as possible. They had been riding ever deeper into barbarian territory since early morning, following the legion’s path down what was no more than a hunter’s track, and now the sun was close to its zenith. The Asturians kept to themselves, leaving him with nobody to talk to other than Perennis, a young man for whom he was gradually developing a marked aversion.

‘So, Tribune, how did you come to be posted to this miserable end of the empire?’

Again the calculated pause.

‘I asked for the posting. My father told me that the emperor wanted to send a young man of the equestrian class to serve with the Northern Command, to provide him with a first-hand description of the country and its people…’

A thinly disguised reference to his role as an imperial spy which, Equitius sensed, was deliberately sufficiently implausible as to make the real purpose quite apparent.

‘Hearing this, I persuaded him to present me to Commodus, and to make the case for my taking the role. The emperor asked me what I would do in the case of my discovering treachery at any level of the army. Even that of a legionary legatus.’

And he paused again, letting the silence drag out.

‘I told him that I would quite cheerfully condemn the traitor to a public and agonising death, as a lesson to any others of the same mind. It seemed to hit the right note…’

Equitius would have bet it did. Commodus’s reputation for insecurity and bloody overcompensation was already well established. Perennis turned in this saddle, looking back at him.

‘I expect you would have said exactly the same.’

Equitius met his eye, suddenly frightened for the first time in several years, hiding his fear behind a slow smile.

‘I expect I would.’

Thirty yards ahead of them, and without warning, half a dozen armoured men stepped from the undergrowth, their spears ready to throw. It was, now he thought about it, perfect country to defend. If a column of attackers were surprised on the path they would be bottled up like rats in a lead drainpipe. He glanced to one side, and saw armoured men moving through the woods, closing the trap. The centurion on the path ahead demanded the password, and waited to receive it from Perennis without a change of expression.

Password given and accepted, Equitius looked down at the men as they rode past, grim-faced veterans who looked up at him with the disdain to which he’d become accustomed as an auxiliary officer. Regulars, as convinced of their superiority over any other fighting man as they were that the sun would rise the next day. Proud, and nasty with it, habitually taking no prisoners and expecting no quarter. Where a captured auxiliary would be slaughtered without compunction, as a traitor to his own people, a legionary would be saved for more exquisite treatment, to be exacted at leisure if possible. To the tribes they were not simply soldiers of the hated oppressor, but enemy citizens, or as good as, and both feared and hated in greater proportions accordingly.

A mile down the track they broke out into the open, a clearing in the forest greatly enlarged by the legionaries’ labour in felling trees, the fallen trunks stripped of their branches and converted into a rough log palisade around the temporary camp’s perimeter. Their branches had been hacked into thousands of stakes and set outside the wall at angles that would impale a careless night attacker. Tents mushroomed across the open space inside the fence, enough for a full legion at eight men to a tent, men still working at strengthening the camp’s defences. Equitius smiled, remembering the old adage — give a legion open ground for a night and you got a field camp surrounded by an earthwork four feet high. A week, and they would pillage the surrounding land for the materials to build a full-blown fort. A month, and the officers’ mess would look as if it had been there for a year.

The small party passed through the open gateway, making their way to the camp’s centre, where the command tents rose above the lower troop and officer versions. Sollemnis met them at the door of his headquarters tent, accepting Perennis’s salute with appropriate gravity before clasping Equitius’s arm in a warm greeting.

‘My good friend, it’s been almost a year!’

Equitius nodded soberly, glancing significantly at the tent.

‘And now we meet in a time of war, with little time for talk.’

‘But talk we must. Perennis, I would invite you to share our discussion, but you probably have duties to attend to?’

The tribune nodded.

‘Indeed, sir. I thought I might take a squadron of the Asturians to the west, and make sure that the barbarians haven’t slipped away from the Petriana.’

Sollemnis waved a hand absently.

‘Very good. Regular dispatches, mind you. I want to know where you are when we move.’

He turned away, gesturing Equitius into the command tent, past the hard-bitten legionaries guarding its flap.

‘A drink?’

An orderly came forward with a tray, pouring them both a cup of wine, and then withdrew, leaving the two men alone. Sollemnis gestured to the couch.

‘Please, my friend, sit down, you must be tired after a day in the saddle. Now, firstly, tell me what you think about my tribune.’

‘Freely?’

‘Of course. You’re not overheard, and you and I are old friends. Your opinions have always been important to me, never more so than now. So, tell me what you think.’

Equitius weighed his words.

‘On one level he seems the most complete soldier. Was this location really his idea?’

‘Oh yes, he spent most of last summer cataloguing the ground. He has a sound grasp of tactics, and an understanding of war fighting and strategy that puts men twice his age to shame. And on the other level?’

‘He’s… dangerous. Do you trust him?’

‘Trust his abilities? Absolutely. You’ll have heard the stories about our great victory over the Twentieth in last autumn’s manoeuvres? That was our Perennis, using the Asturians to scout a way around their flank patrols and bring us down on their supply train like wolves on the flock while the shepherd was away. The senior centurions recognise a kindred spirit, and they worship the ground he walks on. Trust the man? Not likely! He was imposed on me by the governor and on him by the emperor, for the purpose of ensuring my loyalty, but for a young man his ambition burns exceedingly brightly. Too brightly for my liking, I’m afraid. His father’s influence, I suppose.’

‘So why tolerate him?’

‘I refer you back to my first answer. His skills will be invaluable to the legion in this campaign, after which I’ll send him back to Rome as a hero to report our victory, and recommended to take command of a legion of his own, with promotion to senatorial rank. In the meantime I’ll do everything possible to keep our secret from him. Now, I believe another young man’s been making something of a reputation for himself in the last week?’

Equitius smiled wryly.

‘Yes. His adoptive father did too good a job of the boy’s training, turned him into a bloody assassin. We paired him with an experienced chosen man, in the hope that he’d temper the boy’s lack of experience, instead of which they went storming around the countryside at the first opportunity, burning out Calgus’s supplies and taking on his cavalry at suicidal odds. But for old Licinius you’d have no son now.’

‘Licinius. Gods! How long did it take that old bastard to see through the matter?’

‘He didn’t have to. He asked me for the truth and I gave it to him. You lie to that man at your peril.’

‘Hmm. And his verdict was…?’

‘That the boy’s too good a soldier to throw away. If the emperor’s men discover him, Licinius will of course disown the pair of us as traitors.’

‘So we’re not discovered… yet.’

The legatus blew a long breath out.

‘You have my thanks for your risk. I’ll find a way to make amends once this is all dealt with. The Twentieth comes up for command rotation early next year. My recommendation will be for you to take the rank of legatus… not that the position is guaranteed to be in my gift. I never quite understood why it was that you didn’t get command of the Twenty-second Primigenia in Germania. You were senior tribune, after all…’

‘The legatus and I didn’t entirely see eye to eye. He thought it was appropriate for the senior officers to benefit from a variety of incautious frauds against official funds. I didn’t. I was caught between two fires — I either informed on him and earned a reputation as a toady, or ignored the situation and paid the price with the rest of them when they were found out. I managed to get the appropriate information to the governor, but I didn’t want promotion into the shoes of a man I’d effectively condemned to death, so I asked him to send me to Britannia instead. Being appointed to an auxiliary cohort was the closest thing to a promotion I could have expected under the circumstances. Command of a legion would be a very fine thing indeed, but I’m happy enough with the Tungrians.’

His friend nodded.

‘Well, if I get my way you’ll have a legion soon enough. In the meanwhile, we should probably concentrate on more pressing business. Tell me about this new development with our esteemed adversary…’ The cohort went north at a fast pace, twice marching past burned-out forts. The smell of charred wood stayed with them long after the ruined outposts were out of sight, as had an altogether more disturbing odour. Marcus was kept busy until after sunset once the cohorts turned off the line of march for the day. Since the prefects had decided to avoid the previous marching camps which abounded in the frontier area, their locations likely to be known and watched, there was a four-foot turf wall to be built and no time to waste. One tent party was drawn by lot and sent to form part of the guard force, an important precaution even if the enemy could not be expected to find their encampment this late in the day, even less attack it. Another tent party was set to prepare the cohort’s evening meal. With all tasks distributed and under way, and their section of the rampart growing steadily under Dubnus’s expert eye, Marcus suddenly found himself lacking any worthwhile task. Knowing looks were exchanged a moment later as his wiry figure joined the working party to carry cut turfs from the increasingly distant cutting gang to the wall builders.

Antenoch, one of the more skilled rampart builders, threw down the turf he was holding in disgust, watching his officer’s more or less clean mail shirt swiftly deteriorate under his first muddy load. He nudged Dubnus, who had graciously made a great show of accepting his presence in the century, who in turn set out to intercept his centurion, but a raised hand forestalled his comment.

‘The more bodies involved, the quicker we finish. I can’t supervise the wall building, and I can’t cut turf or build the rampart with any expertise. The century is all working, I’ll bet most of the officers are working, and I’m damned if I’ll stand by and watch. Get on with making that rampart sound, and you can teach me the basics later.’

Frontinius walked past on an inspection a few minutes later, searched without success for the centurion’s distinctive crested helmet, and was about to ask Dubnus where his officer was when he made out just who the slightly grubby figure delivering turfs to the wall-building gang was. He stood and watched as the tired centurion headed back out to the turf cutters, nodded to himself and then, with a raised eyebrow to Dubnus, went on his way.

With the wall declared complete, high enough to slow an attacker’s charge to a walking pace and make excellent spear targets of anyone crossing the obstacle, the cohorts went to dinner, with the exception of the guard units, who paid for their inactivity during the building work with a later meal. Fed, the men turned their hands to their domestic chores in the flickering torchlight, making hurried repairs to clothing and equipment, well-worn jokes and insults flying between the working men in equal measure as they relaxed tired limbs and minds. Their last task was to remove the worst of the day’s dirt from their uniforms and faces. A delegation from the 9th promptly demanded Marcus’s dirt-caked mail, which they brushed out and returned with a polished gleam.

As the troops turned in for the night, huddled into their blankets and packed tight in their eight-man tents, the officers were called to the headquarters tent for their briefing. Equitius, who had returned just before sunset, ordered the tired centurions to stand easy.

‘As you know, I met with the Sixth’s legatus early this afternoon. Our situation is more than stabilised — it has become, on the whole, favourable. The Sixth is camped in this forest here…’

He pointed to a point on their rough map twenty miles distant.

‘Second and Twentieth Legions have reached the Wall and are marching along the main road to join us. They’ll probably arrive some time the day after tomorrow. Sollemnis plans to tackle the warband during that day with everything we can throw at it, and as quickly as possible, before it can gather any more spears. Even if it means starting the attack before the Second and Twentieth arrive. So, we break camp in the morning and march with all speed to join the Petriana and Augustan cavalry wings, which are currently holding position ten miles to the north-west. The Sixth will also move tomorrow, with the intention of joining our forces together and forcing a decisive action. Once we have their position fixed we’ll gauge how best to bring them to battle but, and I emphasise this, we’ll only fight if we can bring the legion and our own spears to bear, and on the right terrain for our tactics. Together we’re twelve thousand men with the cavalry wings, quite enough to make a mess of twice our number of undisciplined barbarians on the right ground. So, go and get some sleep and have your men ready to move at first light. We’ve got a long marching day in front of us tomorrow.’

Marcus headed back to his tent, eager to roll up in his blanket and snatch a few hours’ sleep. As he took his boots off something poked him in the ribs, and he remembered the tablet the orderly had given him that morning, hastily pushed into a tunic pocket and then forgotten in the rush of the day. Opening it, he leaned over close to the single lamp, straining to read the stylus marks on the tablet’s hard wax.

‘Marcus, thank you for last night. If I were not already taken, you would be my choice. It’s cruel how the fates conspire to make this clear only after it’s too late. With my love.’ The next day dawned to a thin summer drizzle, accompanied by a sharp wind to mercifully cool the hard-marching cohorts. Goaded by their centurions to a brisk pace, and for once grateful for the absence of unobstructed sunlight, they headed up the North Road towards the abandoned outpost fort at Red River. In the 9th, half a mile ahead of the leading units since the Tungrians were leading the column, nobody was in any doubt as to what they should expect.

‘Roaring River Fort burnt to the ground, although I dare say they scoured the place for weapons first. Red River won’t be any different.’

Dubnus nodded grimly at Morban’s words as they marched, remembering the scene as the cohorts had marched past the shattered remnants of the Roaring River Fort the previous day. In peacetime the fort had been home to a sizeable detachment of auxiliaries, usually rotated out of the Wall units for six months at a time. Positioned north of the Wall, it also attracted more than its share of hangers-on — prostitutes, thieves, merchants and pedlars, all keen to part the soldiers, separated from their usual environment and loved ones, from their money in any way possible.

The warband had evidently come down the North Road fast enough that the evacuating troops had found little time to worry about the occupants of the fort’s ramshackle settlements, who had themselves either taken swift flight or paid a severe price for their collaboration. Fifty or sixty men had been nailed to the remaining standing timbers at Roaring River, another twenty farther south at Fort Habitus, all of them smeared with tar and then set ablaze. Only the blackened husks of their bodies had remained, along with an overpowering stench of burnt flesh. Of the women there’d been no sign, although their fate wasn’t hard to imagine. There wasn’t a man in the cohort that hadn’t imagined the same fate for his own fort and shuddered. Already the mood among the troops had changed, from one of concern as to what they might come up against in the field to a hunger to get some revenge, spill barbarian guts and take heads.

The same thought was obviously on Equitius’s mind, for he ran forward with Frontinius and a twenty-man bodyguard from the 5th and caught up with the 9th at the milestone three miles before they reached the Red River fort.

‘It’s off the road here, I think, and time for you scouts to start earning your corn. If this Calgus is half the commander he’s cracked up to be they’ll have Red River under watch, and I’d rather stay incognito for the time being.’

He looked to either side, then pointed off to their left, at rising ground stretching up to a distant line of trees.

‘We’ll wait here on the road until you report that the path ahead to that forest is clear.’

The 9th went in the direction indicated, off the road to the left, and started up a narrow farmer’s track that led to a rude hut, the abandoned farmer’s dwelling, then on up to the treeline. The woods, three hundred yards distant across the abandoned field, were an uncertain refuge, however. Morban took a good hard look and spat derisively into the dust.

‘Cocidius above, the entire warband could be in that lot and we’d never know it.’

Marcus turned back to grin at the standard-bearer.

‘That’s what the prefect meant when he said it was time to earn our corn. Want to take the standard back to the main body?’

‘And risk getting jumped on my own on the way back? No, thank you very much, sir, I’ll risk it here with a few dozen swords between my soft flesh and the enemy.’

‘Very well. Chosen, we’ll have a party of scouts up that path as soon as you like, the rest of the century to observe from here until we know what’s behind the trees. Nice and steady, no need for shouting or rushing about.’

Dubnus nodded, walking through the troops and picking his scouts by hand, briefing them in measured tones rather than the usual parade-ground roar. The five men chosen shook out into an extended line across the field, then started climbing the slope at a measured pace, slow enough that they had time to strip ears of corn from the standing crop. They nibbled at the immature kernels as they moved through the thigh-deep green carpet.

‘Look at those lucky bastards, just strolling in the country and chewing some poor bloody farmer’s wheat.’

Morban spun to glare at the speaker, the soldier Scarface, shaking the bagged standard at the man, then whispered at him sotto voce.

‘Shut your mouth, you stupid sod. Firstly, it’s them risking a spear in the guts, not you, so a few nibbles of corn isn’t exactly a great reward. Secondly, if your bellowing brings a fucking great warband down out of those trees before the rest of the cohort gets here to die with us, I am personally going to stick this standard right up your arse before they cut my head off. Statue end first!’

Scarface hung his head, red faced. Tongue lashings from Morban, while not exactly rare, were usually less vehement.

The scouts progressed up the slope, vanishing into the trees together as if at some preordained signal. After a moment a man reappeared at the wood’s edge, waving them to come forward with some urgency. The century went up the track at the double, Marcus leading the way in his eagerness to see what had animated the man. Antenoch drew his sword and stayed close to his centurion, his eyes moving across the trees with hard suspicion as they ran up the slope. Morban, hurrying along behind them, muttered an insult at the clerk’s back.

‘What’s the matter, Antenoch, hasn’t he paid you yet this month?’

Inside the wood, in the shade and quiet, Marcus found two of the scouts conferring over something, while the other three were dimly visible fifty or sixty yards distant, moving deeper into the trees. There were flies swarming in the still air, their scratchy buzz sawing at his nerves as they criss-crossed the scene. The man who had waved them up the track, now recognisable as Cyclops, gestured to the ground with some excitement.

‘They were here all right, sir, a day ago, perhaps two.’

Marcus looked. In a small pit, dug a foot or so into the earth, a pile of human excrement and small animal bones formed an untidy still life, a small cloud of buzzing flies still feasting on their find. He turned to find Dubnus at his shoulder. The chosen man looked down into the pit, then squatted down and poked at one of the stools with a twig.

‘These men got lazy, didn’t bury their leavings properly. Cyclops, look for other pits, probably filled in. See how many you can find. Two Knives, you need to brief the prefect. This is a day old from the feel of it, no more, or the flies would have lost interest by now. These were probably the men that torched Red River, set an ambush here in case there were Roman forces in the area to come to the rescue. These woods would easily conceal a whole warband, and hide their fires…’

‘Sir!’

The call came from the scouts deeper into the woods. Marcus shot a glance at them.

‘Dubnus, you brief the prefect, I’ll see what’s got their attention.’

He went on into the woods, the century spreading out to either side, spears and shields held ready. The scouts beckoned him on, pointing to the ground. Now that he took the time to look he saw that the damp earth was pressed flat for a hundred yards in all directions, the marks of many boots. Most of the prints, the most recent, were pointed in the same direction. West.