Altar of Blood: Empire IX (39 page)

The German opened the purse, his eyebrows rising at the sight of the gold within. Tiro leaned forward and lowered his voice conspiratorially.

‘I included a few silver denarii as well, just in case they might be useful in persuading your comrades to aid our cause.’

The head man looked up at him with new-found respect, nodding his head in agreement.

‘We pleased to host you visit! But you do not come to see fish, I sure …’ His expression changed to one of calculation. ‘Tell we, how we help you?’

Tiro smiled, inclining his head in apparent respect for the other man’s swift perception.

‘I see you’re ahead of me. We wish to travel to your tribal capital, for an audience with your king. And, I can quickly assure you, given that I have another larger purse for him, he will wish you to assist us in our travel. Indeed the only possible way you can incur his wrath is to be seen to hinder our swift arrival before his throne.’

‘You want to go city. Meet king.’

‘Indeed I do, and I wish to take with me several of my companions. Which means that apart from granting me free travel across your land, I will need you to sell me some horses.’

He looked back at Dubnus and Varus with a knowing expression. The head man’s smile broadened until it seemed the top of his head might detach itself from his jaw.

‘Sell horse? I sell you best horse in all Marsi land! Wait here, new friend!’

He hurried away, and Tiro watched him go with amused patience.

‘What will follow now is, for those of you who’ve never purchased a horse from a German, a swift but unavoidably painful negotiation, conducted with smiles and good nature on both sides, at the end of which I will have reduced his price for a handful of decidedly average beasts from the downright outrageous to the simply extortionate. He knows I have no choice in the matter, and that my only negotiating point is the fact that my not buying the horses from him may come back to him in a painful manner, were his king to find out who prevented the gold I’ve promised from reaching him. We’ll be on horseback within the hour gentlemen, and in the tribal capital by nightfall, the gods willing.’

‘This was a legion fortress, nearly two hundred years ago. Now look at it.’

The remnants of burned and decayed timbers poked out of the ground along the one-time camp’s defensive perimeter, while the buildings that had once crowded the interior behind the palisade were identifiable only by the darker lines of their foundations. The ruins of a small vicus told their own story, of a civilian population that had accompanied the legions, drawn by love, money or simple duty, but which had either retreated back down the river Lupia with the soldiers when the decision was made not to hold territory in Germania or had paid a high price for staying. Dolfus had taken Gunda and his men on up the road to the north to scout their path, leaving the remainder of the party to snatch a short rest from the rigours of the march and water their horses.

Scaurus sighed wearily, even though the afternoon was still young.

‘We’ll rest for a short time, then press on. The Bructeri won’t be far behind us.’

He climbed down from his horse, but as his feet touched the ground it was as if a sword had been plunged into his injured side. Groaning in pain he sank to one knee, holding a hand to his wound in a vain attempt to stem the agony he was so clearly feeling. Marcus and Arminius ran to him, catching him as he slumped forward in a dead faint. Gerhild hurried to join them, putting a hand on the tribune’s forehead and nodding as if her expectations had been fulfilled.

‘Get his mail off, I need to see the wound.’

Pulling the heavy iron mail shirt over Scaurus’s head, the two men watched as she peeled away the bandage that covered the tribune’s head. Where the perforation in his flesh had been an angry red it was now more of a dirty yellow, the skin around the wound swollen and discoloured.

‘The wound has gone bad, I thought as much. He must rest, and have it treated.’

Marcus shook his head.

‘You heard what he said. If we stay here and the Bructeri find us, then we’re all dead.’

She looked up at him with a quizzical expression.

‘Do you want this man to die, Centurion? I can replace the bandage to allow us to ride on, if you think he can stay in the saddle for very much longer, but if I do not treat him then his death will come swiftly. You choose.’

The two men exchanged glances.

‘We cannot simply press on and have him die in the saddle.’

Marcus nodded slowly at the German’s words.

‘How long will you need?’

Gerhild looked around her.

‘Long enough to build a fire, heat water, gather some fresh lavender if it is to be found, grind it into a little of the horse feed and then mix what you Romans call a
pultes
. I must draw the infection from the wound before we can consider moving him.’

The Roman nodded decisively.

‘Arminius, get the men working to do what she needs as quickly as possible. I’ll take the Hamians and watch the ground to the south. At least that way we’ll have some warning if the Bructeri have found their way across the river and are at our heels.’

‘I have found a way through the reeds, my King.’

Bowing his head, the hunter waited for a rebuke, or worse, at the number of attempts that had been required to find a crossing point that would allow a horse to wade the river unimpeded, but Amalric’s anger at their seemingly interminable delay had long since exhausted itself.

‘Good. Lead us across.’

The older man turned back to the river with his dogs capering beside him, eager to resume the hunt, and the young king watched as the first of the men of his household nudged their horses into the water, following the huntsman’s lead into the field of reeds that choked the river’s bed.

‘They will be long gone by now, I expect.’

Gernot was silent for a moment.

‘I wouldn’t be so sure about that, my King. Consider where they can run to, in reality. To the west are the Chamavi, our enemies it has to be said, but no great friends to Rome either. To the east are the Marsi, neutral to Rome but allied with ourselves and so unlikely to knowingly allow a party of fugitives to enter their land. But between them are the Angrivarii, forever our enemies, and if I were this man Dolfus, and whoever it is that stands behind him, I would be looking to them to provide me with shelter from our anger.’

‘And that means …?’

‘If I were running for our border with the Angrivarii, my first stop would be their ruined fortress at Aliso, to use the road of wood, or what little remains of it.’

Amalric stroked his chin.

‘It would be something of a gamble to assume that this will be their route. If they realise how obvious it seems, then surely they might pick another road to throw off our pursuit?’

Gernot shrugged.

‘They may not have any choice in the matter. If this Dolfus has been told to make for the frontier with the Angrivarii, he has no option but to ride in that direction. If we ride swiftly we may yet take these Romans unawares.’

‘These Marsi clearly don’t trust their neighbours.’

Tiro nodded his agreement, leaning back in the saddle that had been provided as part of the price of the horse he was riding to ease the pain in his buttocks. Leaving the remainder of the detachment behind them to safeguard the warship, Tiro and the two centurions had ridden north for most of the day. Now the Marsi capital was before them, heavy earth walls protecting the city from any potential aggression from the tribes that bordered their land.

‘There isn’t a single tribe on the eastern bank of the Rhenus that trusts any of the others. Fortified cities like this are commonplace for the protection of their major settlements, and a symbol of status as well. It is a continuing mark of the ignominy to which the Bructeri were subjected after their war with the Angrivarii and the Chamavi that they still are not allowed to build similar defences.’

The village’s head man had sent one of the younger men riding ahead of them to warn the tribe’s chief of the Romans’ approach, and a party of warriors resplendent in red tunics and wearing swords were waiting for them, drawn up in a line across the road that led to the city’s main gate. Tiro turned in his saddle to face the two centurions.

‘We should now dismount, to show the king the appropriate respect. And take your swords off, both of you.’ They climbed down from the horses, and Dubnus pulled a pained face as he lifted his scabbard’s leather strap over his head, moving his hips in discomfort much to Tiro’s amusement. ‘Piles, Centurion? Perhaps when we meet the Bructeri woman she can make you an ointment for them, I hear she’s quite the healer.’ He saw the king approaching, and raised a finger to them. ‘You two concentrate on keeping your expressions respectful, and I’ll do the talking here. The men with the swords are mainly there for show, and to let the king tell his people that he doesn’t roll over to have his belly tickled when the big boy from across the river turns up, but a few words out of place might just give them cause to air their iron. And if it looks like getting aggressive, whatever you do, don’t react. If this lot decide to kill us then let’s face it, we’re dead whatever happens.’

He dismounted and strode forward, stopping at a respectful distance from a man clad identically to the warriors on either side, but whose size and bearing immediately marked him out as their leader. Bowing deeply, the Roman spread his arms to indicate that he was unarmed.

‘Greetings, King Sigimund. I come before you without sword or shield, empty-handed in the pursuit of a peaceful resolution to a dispute between Rome and the Bructeri tribe!’

The king looked back at him for a moment before speaking, and when he did respond his tone was sardonic, reflective of an apparent amusement at Tiro’s unexpected appearance at the gates of his capital.

‘So, Tiro, once again you arrive unbidden, and doubtless seeking a “small favour” from the Marsi. And whatever this request entails, I feel certain that were King Amalric here he would even now be railing against you. Word travels swiftly when you Romans decide to interfere in the affairs of any of the tribes, because what you will do to one of us today will become your accepted way of keeping us all in our place tomorrow.’

Tiro shrugged, apparently unabashed.

‘What can I say, your Highness? Kidnapping the woman Gerhild would not have been my favoured approach to the problem.’

Sigimund laughed.

‘I’m sure it wouldn’t! Your way would have involved a few well-placed bribes and a small but deadly dose of poison, I expect! So, now that you know that I’m already very well aware of your theft of Amalric’s seer, what is it that you want from me?’

‘Only a small thing, your Highness. I ask permission for my comrades and I to cross your land as far as the point where the Angrivarii hold sway.’

Sigimund raised an eyebrow.

‘And that’s the full extent of your request? I’m surprised, given that my headman’s messenger told me that you have a bag of gold with which to purchase my favours.’

Tiro conceded the point with a gracious half-bow.

‘As ever, King Sigimund, you have seen through my attempts at diplomacy. I do have a small gift to offer you, a token of Roman friendship with the Marsi, although there is a good deal more than this to be had …’

He passed across the purse, watching hawklike as Sigimund weighed it in his hand. His disappointment on forcing Scaurus’s chest open had been evident, finding only sufficient gold to pay off the local head man at their landing point and fill the purse he had just handed to the Marsi king.

‘I wish to enter the kingdom of the Angrivarii in order to welcome a few of my men who have chosen to ride north from the Bructeri land, rather than—’

‘No!’ Sigimund shook his head in amazement. ‘You mean to tell me that your kidnappers are bringing the Bructeri woman out to the north, across their own land? Even I am amazed at the lengths you people will go to in order to put an enemy back in his place. Amalric will be humiliated in the eyes of his people and those of the tribes that surround them, when the news of such audacity becomes public. Having lost her to the unexpected intervention of your ships would have been one thing, but this? This is something much,
much
worse. Such a loss of face could see the man killed by his own nobles just for the shame of it.’

He walked out of the line of his warriors, gesturing for them to stay in their places, stepping to within a foot of the Roman and bending to speak more quietly in his ear.

‘And if you need me to grant you leave to ride across my land in one direction, surely you’ll need the same favour to come back the other way with your men?’ He paused for a moment. ‘And with Amalric’s witch, I presume?’

Tiro stared back at him unflinchingly.

‘You have the nub of it, Your Highness. In return for which I am empowered to offer you a further payment of one hundred gold aureii.’

The king looked away for a moment, considering the offer, then raised his voice indignantly, poking a finger into the Roman’s chest to emphasise his point.

‘You ask me to betray the friendship of a fellow king! For a purse of gold? You should have a higher regard for the Marsi, an honourable people!’

He leaned closer, lowering his voice to a whisper that was loud enough to be obviously venomous while too quiet for the words to carry, continuing to stab his finger at Tiro’s chest as if to reinforce some dire threat.

‘Two hundred. And fifty. To be paid
before
the woman leaves Marsi territory. The woman
not
to be visible to my people, and to travel by boat for as much of the distance as possible. I must be able to tell Amalric that her feet never touched Marsi soil, understood?’

Tiro nodded almost imperceptibly and, stepping back, Sigimund struck a decisive pose.

‘I will, for the sake of good relations with our powerful neighbour in the west, accept your offer of gold for the Marsi treasury, but that is as far as I can go in the name of our mutual friendship. You will be allowed to cross our land until you reach that of the Angrivarii, and after that your welcome here will be at its end. Do you understand me?’