Legionary: The Scourge of Thracia (Legionary 4) (32 page)

‘Sir, tomorrow we can march at pace, but only if we find warmth and shelter for tonight.’ Dexion’s face was drawn and weary, and his eyes seemed to search Gallus. ‘If anything it will hasten our journey and . . . ’ his words faltered.

Gallus saw the passing fear on Dexion’s face and felt his stubborn, icy resolve thaw. ‘Aye, wise words, Primus Pilus. Let us gather kindling before the light fails.’

Chapter 17

Pavo and Sura stood by a babbling fountain at the heart of Sardica’s forum, each carefully scooping and throwing water over their faces after their hasty march. The city’s frost-coated mighty walls and turrets enveloped them in every direction, leaving just a broad square of grey sky overhead. They had marvelled at the immense arena sitting just outside the city, and admired the tall, sturdy walls too, but Sardica’s interior was even more impressive: broad streets embellished with columns, statues and sculptures to rival Constantinople itself. A vast basilica hemmed one edge of the forum, and an ornate, marble-fronted bathhouse stood at the other end. The upper tiers of the colossal arena they had marvelled at outside the city jutted even higher than the southern walls. All around them, the populace wandered, chattering, carrying wares from the market. Some were togate in the ancient tradition, many wore fine silk robes. Barely a beggar to be seen, and not one soul carried an inkling of fear in their eyes. The closest they came to showing any sign of upset was when they meandered past the fountain, noses wrinkling slightly as they looked askance at Pavo and Sura’s grubby, dusty features, tattered military garb and dull, battered helms they carried underarm.

Pavo snorted at one shrew-like woman who scowled at them. ‘They act as if the fate of the world outside these walls is not theirs to be concerned with?’

‘Aye, and they’ve got men to spare, it seems,’ Sura nodded to the battlements where a healthy garrison was posted, wrapped in scale vests, fine red cloaks and wearing polished intercisa helms that looked as if they had yet to be blessed with the swipe of a Gothic sword. ‘A good cohort’s worth, I’d say. Comitatenses too – well hoarded within these walls when they could have been put to good use outside. They should be able to spare at least half for us, eh?’

Pavo held Sura’s innocent look of hope for a moment to be sure he was being serious. ‘Let’s just meet with the governor first? Ah, here we go,’ he added, looking over Sura’s shoulder to the pair of scale-clad legionaries who approached.

‘Governor Patiens will see you now,’ the tallest one said as if addressing a beggar rolling in his own filth.

Patiens lay on his side, stretched out on a quilted day bed in a chamber just off the palace’s peristyle garden. He stroked an evil-looking cat – completely hairless like its master though lacking the gaudy paint Patiens wore on his face. Around him sat a ring of well-fed nobility, their jowels wobbling as they laughed uproariously at his tales. Pavo and Sura were stripped of their swords then shown inside by the ascetic legionary pair. Unlike the frosty streets outside, the chamber was warm like a summer’s day, and Pavo felt the heat rise from the tiled floor and the hypocaust underneath. The walls were painted with bright scenes of blossoming orchards and gardens – every flower in bloom and every fruit ripe – birds and insects and bright-eyed people in fine robes, eyes wide as if fixated on Patiens’ tales too. However, on hearing the man’s weak rhetoric and woeful humour – mostly based around highlighting how rich he was – it was clear to see this lot were mere sycophants.

The pair came to the rear of Patiens’ ring of admirers. Pavo noticed the table in the centre of the gathering, laden with many jugs of wine, goose livers, stuffed birds and roast goat. His mouth suddenly moistened and his belly gurgled, a little too eagerly.

Patiens halted his tale mid-sentence, his jovial demeanour at once falling away and a cold air replacing it. He looked to the legionary sentries escorting Pavo and Sura, flicking his head up a fraction as if to demand an explanation.

‘Legionaries from Thracia,
Dominus
.’

Patiens’ expression darkened further and he waved a hand to dismiss his two men.

All heads turned to Pavo and Sura.

‘Well?’ Patiens said, his neck extending and his face agape as if mocking them.

‘I am Optio Numerius Vitellius Pavo of Legio XI Claudia Pia Fidelis, Second Cohort, First Century, sir.’

‘Very good. Well done!’ Patiens sat tall, clapped his hands frantically and guffawed, looking round his ring of toadies and rousing harmonising laughter from them too. ‘Will that be all?’

Pavo felt the utter lack of respect like a stinging slap. Before replying, he had to remind himself of the huge gulf in rank between Patiens and himself. ‘We have been sent here from
Trajan’s Gate in the Succi Pass
. There, Comes Geridus commands only two centuries of legionaries and one of archers. He is tasked with holding the pass in anticipation of Emperor Gratian’s march east. Such a small garrison might have been adequate at the outset of this strategy, but the situation has since changed – the Gothic horde has broken through the Haemus Mountain passes and now holds central Thracia.’

He paused, expecting a reaction from Patiens. The man just glowered at him as if being pestered by some over-attentive slave. Then an incongruous and strained smile bent his face. ‘Ah, Geridus – the Coward of Ad Salices – he finds himself at a more suitable, lowly station does he? The windswept furrow that is
Trajan’s Gate
sounds like an ideal home for such a craven fool!’

At Patiens gentle upwards flick of his hands, the ring of admirers hooted with laughter, gripping their bellies and throwing their heads back in a sickening show of flattery. ‘The doddering oaf cried his way out of battle,’ Patiens roused them, feigning hysterics, ‘and now spends his days weeping over his own failures!’ The chamber shook with the hilarity this apparently deserved.

Pavo thought to defend Geridus but shook the notion away. ‘Sir, a wing of the Goths are right now coming west. Five thousand men, led by a murderous bastard,’ he said this and had to stop to compose himself. But the venom behind the last word brought wide-eyes from the onlookers. ‘They are set on breaking through
Trajan’s Gate
and spilling into these lands,’ he jabbed a finger at the fine, heated and tiled floor. Still, no reaction. ‘Governor, should they succeed then your fine city is the first they will fall upon.’ Now he fell silent and vowed to remain that way until the man replied.

Patiens’ nostrils flared. ‘These
leeegionaries
from Thracia seem to have brought our gathering to an end.’ He flicked up his hands as if to wave the toadies away.

One long-necked and cross-eyed groveler misread Patiens’ signal and erupted in laughter at this, only to fall instantly silent and hang his head in shame as the Governor shot him an icy look. Patiens clapped his hands this time and, like a flock of scattering geese, his audience was gone. The governor stood and waved Pavo and Sura with him. He walked with a swaying gait, muttering to himself as he went, leading them up a red-veined marble staircase that wound through floor after floor. They came to a green-speckled porphyry chamber that opened out onto a semi-circular balcony edged with a carved balustrade. The view was a vertiginous and fine one, overlooking the fine street plan of Sardica’s halls, villas, gardens and markets. Many storeys high, it even afforded a perfect vista beyond the city’s walls and down into the floor of the arena just outside. The chill winter air up here was spiced with sweet woodsmoke from small sconces glowing at the corners of the balcony.

Patiens absently admired his fine city, as if he had forgotten about his visitors. Pavo and Sura shared a concerned look, each conscious of the vitality of every passing moment.

‘Sir, of all the matters that trouble my legion, time is the-’

Patiens raised a hand to cut him off. ‘Your tribunus passed through my city over a week ago. I know all there is to know.’

Pavo felt a wave of relief. ‘Tribunus Gallus was here?’

‘Yes, yes,’ Patiens waved his hands dismissively. ‘His primus pilus and eight riders too.’

Dexion!
Pavo felt the hard ball of tension that had lingered in his stomach since his brother and Gallus had set off ease just a little. Still much might have happened to them since they had passed through here, but it gave him hope.

‘They were in a damned hurry to ride west,’ Patiens continued. ‘Like you, they thought they could simply commandeer my garrison. They were wrong.’

‘Sir, the matter is simple. With just the few hundred men we have currently, the pass will fall and Farnobius’ Goths will be at your walls before long. More, this will divert Emperor Gratian’s campaign away from Thracia, and might even condemn those lands to defeat at the hands of the main Gothic horde.’ He stepped forward, daring to rest his hands on the balcony by Patiens’ side like an equal – a step too far on the rungs of social etiquette, probably, but the issue had to be pressed. ‘Grant us three of your centuries, sir, and the pass can be held.’

‘
Can
be held? You don’t sound so sure, legionary,’ Patiens hissed, eyeing him askance.

‘Victory cannot be guaranteed. Few things in life can – bar the scorching sun in June and that high tides will follow low . . . and that if we do not have more men and weapons and armour to equip those already at the pass, it
will
fall.’

Patiens forced a woefully inadequate smile. ‘Fine walls protect my city,’ he said. ‘I am no military man, but Goths do not break down city walls, or so I believe.’

Pavo frowned and snatched a glance over his shoulder to see Sura’s eyes narrowing too. ‘No, but they build ladders and swarm up them like maddened ants. They might not take your walls, but by Mithras, they will try . . . and there are plenty of them to replace those who might fail at first. Spare your citizens the threat of hearing these barbarous whoresons clawing at the battlements.’

‘A cohort of comitatenses legionaries makes a strong garrison for these fine walls,’ Patiens continued as if Pavo had not spoken. ‘Were I to dilute their number on some lost cause . . . ’

‘Sir, I implore you,’ he reached out to clasp the governor’s arm. A screech of steel halted him.

‘Not another inch,’ a stony voice spoke from the archway leading out to the balcony. Pavo and Sura swung round to see the grim legionary pair standing there, the tall one’s spatha part unsheathed.

Pavo backed away, a dull nausea churning in his gut. No men, no arms, nothing. He looked to Sura and saw his friend looked as lost as he felt.

‘I will grant you something, however,’ Patiens continued. He beckoned Pavo and Sura back to the balcony edge, offering a placatory palm to his own soldiers. For a moment, Pavo wondered if the next thing he would feel was the grim-faced legionary’s hands butting into his back and throwing him over. Instead, Patiens reached out and pointed. Pavo followed the line of his outstretched finger, and a momentary optimism gripped him when his eyes ran over the barracks of the legionary garrison.
Auxiliary centuries? Maybe not the same prospect as hardened comitatenses legionaries, but men that knew how to stand and fight.

The twinkling of hope extinguished when Pavo saw that the governor was in fact pointing at the insulae – the serried rows of ramshackle tenements behind the barracks.

‘The slums are a stain on my city. Some say it is a necessary one, but I find the antics of the rats in that licentious maze nothing but an insufferable distraction.’ Patiens swung and nodded to his two guards. One of them hurried off inside. ‘You need men? You can have your pick of men from the taverns and shacks in that quarter of the city,’ Patiens grinned. ‘And I will even fund you for doing so. I’ll even have wagons of armour and weapons ready for you by the time you leave – and I assume that will be soon?’ he said, his eyebrows rising as if demanding an affirmative.

Pavo nodded, unable to judge this offer as a curse or a blessing, nodded.

‘And we have an understanding that once this gift has been granted, there will be no further attempts to requisition men or supplies from my city?’ Patiens added.

Pavo nodded, his face stony.

Patiens’ sickly smile reappeared and he clapped his hands twice in quick succession. Footsteps rattled up the stairway and the legionary returned, carrying with him a small sack that jangled with the unmistakable
clunk
of coins. He held it out for Pavo.

Pavo took it, eyeing the sack and reaching out for it gingerly.

‘Don’t get too excited, Legionary. It is merely a few handfuls of bronze folles. Enough for you to conjure the rats from their layer,’ he nodded to the slums again, a feral grin spreading over his features. ‘If they do not devour you . . . ’

‘Duck!’ Sura yelped, hauling Pavo down just before a foaming cup of ale hurtled across the tavern and exploded against the far wall.