Fortress of Spears (24 page)

Taking another spear, Drust repeated the act, driving the weapon through Cyrus’s other thigh and watching with satisfaction as the Roman once more contorted silently at the agonising pain being inflicted upon him. The men around Licinius drew in sharp breaths or turned their heads away, dumbstruck at the torture their comrade was enduring without making a sound. Taking a sword from another of his men, Drust leaned forward on the weapon’s point, addressing the Romans arrayed before him in an almost conversational tone.

‘I promised to make his death honourable. I didn’t mention anything about it being quick.’

He pivoted and thrust the weapon’s blade into the helpless decurion’s guts, ripping it free in a stinking shower of blood and entrails. A deep groan of pain escaped the captive’s lips, and his body twisted hideously in the ropes’ unforgiving grip. Licinius spoke into the charged silence, raising his voice to a bark of command.

‘
Decurion Cyrus!
’

The writhing body stiffened, and Cyrus’s attention snapped down on to his commanding officer, his face distorted into a rictus of agony.

‘Decurion Cyrus, you are dying with honour in the face of a brutal and remorseless enemy. You deserve the highest praise for your fortitude and stoicism. Now, before you die, tell me what it is that you’ve given to this barbarian!’

He glared fiercely at the dying man, willing him to answer. Cyrus opened his lips to display his teeth, clamped hard together against his suffering, drawing a quick breath to reply.

‘Tribune! … I told him … about the Tung—’

Drust turned, ramming the sword into the Roman’s throat and stopping him in mid-sentence with a horrible gurgle as what was left of his lifeblood ran down into his lungs and killed him in a few seconds of frenzied struggle for breath. The Venicone king turned back to stare down at the Roman officers gathered beneath him, his face flecked with Cyrus’s blood and twisted in a snarl of frustration.

‘Very clever, Tribune. I either allowed him to tell you something best left between the two of us or put him out of his misery to close his mouth.’ He shrugged, a slow smile replacing the fury. ‘No matter. I have his secret, and it remains exactly that. And you, Tribune, all of you dogs, have a count of one hundred to get yourself away from
my
walls.
On your way!
’

Ten miles north of the site of that morning’s skirmish the detachment turned off the route of their march north and built the customary temporary camp. With the earth wall raised and the soldiers taking their evening meal, Scaurus had called his officers together for a cup of wine before darkness fell. Canutius had been delayed by a problem with one of his centuries, but both of the Tungrian senior centurions had attended with alacrity upon receiving the invitation, and found Tribune Laenas already in attendance. Sitting outside Tribune Scaurus’s tent, cup in hand, First Spear Frontinius cast a jaundiced eye at the late afternoon sky and cocked an eyebrow at Neuto, shaking his head slowly.

‘Rain before daylight, I’d say.’

His colleague nodded his head sagely.

‘Yes. We should get them tucked up in their bedrolls early tonight; they’re going to have a heavy day of it tomorrow.’

Scaurus raised an eyebrow but made no comment, allowing Tribune Laenas to fall into the veteran officers’ time-worn trap.

‘Do you mean to say that you gentlemen can tell what the weather will be doing just by looking at the sky?’

Frontinius nodded readily, his face a study in innocence.

‘Yes, Tribune, when you’ve served on the northern frontier for as many years as myself and my colleague here, the weather no longer holds any mystery. And now, if you’ll excuse us …?’

He drank the last of his wine and stood to go, and Neuto, reading his expression, reached for his helmet and got to his feet.

‘Yes, you’ll have to excuse me too, Tribune, I’ve got a cohort to chivvy into their beds and a storeman to relieve of a new pair of boots.’

Laenas raised his hands to halt their departure, protesting at their apparent reluctance to further educate him.

‘Gentlemen, gentlemen, not so
fast
! You can tell that it’s going to rain from looking at
that
?’ He pointed up at the sky, the clouds edged with gold as the sun dipped towards the western horizon. ‘All I can see is the start of a sunset and a few clouds. What’s the secret?’

The two first spears shared a glance, waiting for a long moment before Frontinius shrugged and turned back to face the legion officer.

‘We’ll tell you, Tribune, but you must promise to keep our secret between us. We don’t want just anyone learning the secrets of frontier weather prediction.’

He stared at Laenas with a raised eyebrow, waiting until the Roman nodded his agreement, his face solemn.

‘Your secret, gentlemen, is safe with me.’

The centurions stepped in close, beckoning the tribune from his chair and gathering round him in a conspiratorial huddle. Frontinius stared at him levelly, as if taking a gauge of the man.

‘The secret of foretelling the weather in this harsh country is very simple, and yet known only to a few men. If we tell you this secret now, we are admitting you to a close-knit brotherhood of men who have this knowledge. Do you promise to keep it between us?’

Laenas nodded eagerly, his curiosity piqued beyond patience. Frontinius looked at his colleague, and Neuto nodded reluctantly.

‘I suppose we can trust a tribune of Rome, a gentleman with a sense of honour. Very well, Tribune. The secret of predicting the weather here on the frontier … and you guarantee to keep this between us …?’

‘Senior Centurions Frontinius and Neuto, the phrase “piss or get off the pot” is springing to mind. I’m sure you both have important duties to which you might be attending?’

The Tungrian officers nodded their understanding to a visibly irritated Scaurus, turning back to the tribune with pursed lips and raised eyebrows. Frontinius lowered his voice to a whisper, shaking his head almost inperceptibly

‘The tribune gets annoyed because we haven’t yet shared the secret with him.’

Scaurus spoke again without looking up from his scroll.

‘I heard that. Get on with it.’

‘Well then, Tribune, the secret of predicting the weather is this …’

Laenas held his breath with the tension, his eyebrows raised in expectation.

‘Can you see that tree?’

Taken aback by the banality of the question, Laenas followed the first spear’s pointing hand to stare at a distant lone tree on the horizon.

‘Yes. Yes, I can see it.’

‘And how far away would you say that the tree is?’

‘Half a mile?’

‘Excellent. If you can see that tree, or any other object at that distance, then it isn’t raining.’

He stared at the Roman with a straight face, waiting for the other man to respond.

‘Yes … I’d be forced to agree with you.’

‘Excellent. So if you can see the tree, it’s not raining. However …’ He raised a finger to underline the point. ‘Colleague?’

Neuto inclined his head gravely, taking up the thread.

‘If you can see the tree, and it isn’t raining, it soon will be.’

The two centurions stood in solemn silence for a moment, watching the tribune intently. For his part, they told their own officers later that evening, he seemed to take it in good part.

‘So if I can see the tree … if I’ve got this right … it will soon be raining.’

Frontinius nodded happily.

‘You’ve got the measure of it. Use your new knowledge wisely, though, many men would cheerfully kill to have such insight. We …’

‘
You
both have soldiers you could be beasting round the camp, if, that is, you wouldn’t rather stay and regale my brother officer with further attempts at tent-party humour.’

The two men took their tribune’s hint and strode away into their respective parts of the camp with a comradely nod to each other. Scaurus cocked his head to one side ostentatiously, clearly waiting for something, and after a moment an outraged bellow of admonishment rang out as one of the pair spotted one of his men doing something outside the closely regulated activity prescribed for the soldier in question.

‘Excellent! Normal service is resumed. Will you take another cup of wine with me, Tribune Laenas?’

The younger man paused for a second, as if expecting some further attempt at humour, then nodded his assent and sank back into his chair.

‘Your officers, it seems, are little different to mine. The first cohort’s centurions are always looking at me in that sideways manner they use to indicate my lack of suitability for my role in their closed little world.’ The bitterness in his voice caught Scaurus’s attention, and he dropped the scroll to give his subordinate his full attention. Laenas was staring out into the camp, his eyes unfocused as he gazed fixedly at the horizon. ‘They’re so secure in their certainty as to how everything works, and they give me so little help …’

Scaurus went into his tent and returned a moment later with a fresh flask of wine and two cups, pouring them both a generous measure.

‘Here, this might help. It’s the genuine Falernian, believe it or not, and it seems to have survived the journey in a more or less tolerable condition.’ He took a sip, raising an eyebrow in mute appreciation. ‘You were saying?’

Laemas shifted uneasily in his seat, taking a deep drink from his cup.

‘I’m not a crybaby, you understand. My father made sure that I got enough training as a boy that I would give a fair account of myself were I ever to see any fighting, and yet these legion men have a way of reducing me to helpless frustration every time I try to impose my authority on them.’ Scaurus watched him over the rim of his cup, taking stock of his officer’s state of mind as he spoke. ‘The battle to take the barbarian camp, there’s a good example. I had orders to break in from the north with this very cohort, a critical role, Legatus Equitius called it, and I was very clear with my officers that we were going to play our part to the full. And yet when we got within spitting distance of the objective my first spear started prevaricating, finding reasons why we weren’t ready to attack, and delaying our deployment until Licinius rode up and all but accused me of being afraid to advance into the enemy camp.’

Scaurus winced.

‘Gaius Manilius Licinius does have a very special way of communicating his disappointment.’

Laemas nodded, warming to his subject.

‘Quite so, but to make it worse, First Spear Canutius promptly started making it pretty clear to Manilius Licinius that
his
desire to get into action was being frustrated by
my
delaying tactics. Nothing I could challenge without looking even more of a fool, of course, but Licinius clearly went away with the impression that I’m not fit to command. And so I find myself here …’

‘… under the command of a social inferior and probably doomed to this ignominy for the rest of your short career?’

Laenas winced at the words, for all that Scaurus’s voice had been perfectly level.

‘Yes, I’m sorry for my poor showing at our first meeting, I really wasn’t thinking very clearly. Too busy feeling sorry for myself, I suppose.’ He took another mouthful of the Falernian. ‘Forgive me, colleague, I’m making a mess of this career on so many fronts I’m not sure what to do for the best, but I never meant to impugn either your office or your honour as a Roman gentleman.’

Scaurus smiled back at him.

‘Cheer up, Tribune. Your first spear clearly has a problem that we can easily remedy, and you’ll have plenty of chances to prove that there’s fire in your belly in the next few days. As for first spears Frontinius and Neuto, their humour is of a different kind to that you might be used to suffering. You show them that you’re fit to command and they’ll soon enough come round to your side. Now, will you take another cup? That one seems to have emptied itself all too quickly. We’ll drink to long life and glorious victory, and then I must spare some time for Prince Martos. I promised that I would read him the letters he captured during the raid on Calgus’s tent, and it’s about time I made good on the offer.’

7

Later that evening, with the evening meal taken and the three cohorts’ soldiers busy about their usual campaign routine of cleaning their equipment and improving the edges of their blades, the detachment’s tribunes and senior centurions came together in Scaurus’s command tent to discuss the next day’s march. Decurion Felix was ordered to attend as the commander of the Petriana’s detached squadrons, and he brought both Double-Pay Silus and Marcus with him, despite the sour looks that the gesture earned him from First Spear Canutius. Scaurus opened the discussion, pointing to a sketchy map of the ground that lay before them to the north.

‘Well then, gentlemen, I’ve ridden this route to the Dinpaladyr before, so I’ve made a start at drawing a map of the ground we’ll have to cross to make our approach. Martos has given me all the help he can, but he’s more of a warrior than a geographer, so I’m afraid that our knowledge of the route is still a little sketchy.’

‘Tribune?’ Double-Pay Silus stepped forward with an em -barrassed salute, drawing inquisitive stares from the assembled officers.

‘Double-Pay?’

‘Begging your pardon, Tribune, but I’ve been riding these hills since I was a lad. The Petriana used to mount security patrols in the rear of the northern wall when it was still manned. We spent most of our effort in the west, keeping the Selgovae on their toes, but we rode this ground as well, when we could spare the time. Even after the pull-back to the old wall we still got around a fair bit, making sure the frontier tribes didn’t mistake our retreat for weakness. I could add some detail to that map, if you’d like me to.’

Scaurus nodded, handing him a stick of charcoal. The cavalryman stood over the parchment for a moment, his eyes moving across its sparse detail, then put the charcoal to the map, drawing fresh lines with swift, confident movements.

‘The River Tuidius runs here, and meets the sea here, and it can be forded by infantry here – but by cavalry here, and here.’