Legionary: Viper of the North (3 page)

Durostorum’s winter morning market halted to watch as Legionary Numerius Vitellius Pavo of the XI Claudia stood to face the three troublemakers.

The slit-eyed drunk before Pavo roared and rushed forward, right hand balled into a fist, the left grasping a cup of foaming ale.

Pavo watched his assailant’s footsteps. He fought the urge to draw his spatha, then dodged back out of the man’s right hook, sticking out a foot. The man’s roar tapered into a yelp as he tripped, the contents of the ale cup showering Pavo’s face, cloak and mail vest. The man himself crashed to the frozen earth, face-first, shards of tooth spraying from his mouth.

The townsfolk watched with bated breath, eagerly eyeing Pavo and then the two sidekicks who had backed the drunk until only moments ago.

Pavo eyed the pair, stabbing a finger at the grounded drunk who moaned in agony. ‘Now I could have let him hit me,’ he panted, his breath clouding in the chill, ‘and then he would have lost the skin from his back for it. So take your chance; walk away and sleep it off!’

The two couldn’t hold Pavo’s gaze, and backed away then melted into the crowd. Then, with a groan, the grounded man pushed himself up. He held up his hands in a gesture of submission, blood streaming from his shattered array of teeth.

‘Look, there’s barely enough food to go round,’ he said, nodding to the town
horreum.

Pavo kept his face stern, but the man was right; the grain store was running dangerously low and winter had yet to reach its depths.

‘So if we can’t eat our fill then we may as well drink what’s left in the ale barrels,’ the man continued, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder.

Pavo glanced over the man’s shoulder to the squat stone inn, distinguished by the stirring pole and vine leaves resting by the doorway.
The Boar and Hollybush
was the favourite haunt for the men of his legion. But today, like every other market day, it was full of inebriated locals. Worse, when he had ventured inside earlier, there was no sign of her.
Felicia.
His mind flitted momentarily to the last night they had shared, her warm skin against his, her sweet scent, her locks whispering over his chest.

‘Besides,’ the man’s grating tone snapped him back to the present, ‘there are hardly enough of your lot over in the fort to keep this place in check,’ the drunk slurred, then turned to trudge away.

Pavo made to fire some retort, but the drunk was right again. In the last few weeks, many Gothic settlements that had sworn loyalty to Fritigern, the dominant iudex of the Thervingi and a tentative Roman ally, had reported disturbances and rebel uprisings. Thus, numerous
vexillationes
had been summoned north, stripping the XI Claudia of their already understrength complement. Now, barely three hundred men including auxiliaries, recruits and Gothic
foederati
were housed in the fort.

As the crowd dissolved back into the daily bustle of market day, Pavo spat the traces of beer from his lips. He pulled his hands together across his face to the point of his beaky nose, then wiped them across his hazel eyes, thick brows and dark, stubbled scalp. He picked up his
intercisa
helmet from the ground where it had fallen, brushing the dirt from the iron fin. Then, realising his woollen trousers and the tunic he wore under his mail shirt were not quite so white anymore, he pulled his grey woollen cloak around his lean frame, wincing at the stench of the ale-soaked garment.

Footsteps rattled up beside him and his heart leapt. He spun, fists raised, then slumped in relief at the sight of his fellow legionary. ‘Sura!’ This blonde-mopped and cherub-faced lad had been Pavo’s loyal friend since the first day of enlistment. ‘Did you catch the rest of them?’

‘I caught one and kicked his balls,’ Sura gasped for breath, resting a hand on Pavo’s shoulder. ‘Nearly broke my bloody foot. The others . . . they’ll think twice about starting a ruckus when I’m around. Now do me a favour – let’s head back to the fort.’

‘Aye, this place is becoming bloody treacherous!’ Pavo muttered. ‘If things carry on like this I’ll
have
to draw my sword on them one day.’

They walked through the flagstoned streets, past the timber arena, the domed Christian church and the squat tenements until they reached the town gates. Here, Pavo cast a foul glare at the two auxiliaries atop the thick stone gatehouse. The pair pretended not to notice, just as they had turned a blind eye to the drunk and his friends wreaking havoc at the market despite having a perfect view of the incident from the walls.

Outside the town, Pavo shivered, pulling his cloak tighter. The morning chill was stark and the air was spiced with woodsmoke. Winter had gripped the banks of the River Danubius and the cornfields lay brown and fallow, cloaked in a frost that was insensitive to the best efforts of the morning sun. To the east, about a half-mile from the south bank of the great river, the squat bulwark that was the fortress of the XI Claudia Legion stood like a titan’s gravestone. Coated in moss, sparkling with frost and framed by the distant shimmering waters of the
Pontus Euxinus
, this place had been his home for nearly a year. The towers of the fort were crowned with the ruby-red bull banners of this legion and the battlements were punctuated with the distinctive iron fin-topped intercisa helmets of the precious few sentries. Meanwhile, the rest of the legion trained on the plain to the northwest of the fort, and the sight of them warmed Pavo’s heart.

Then a distant moan of a Gothic war horn sounded to the north. Instinctively, he and Sura spun towards the noise. Then the pair slumped and Pavo chided himself, realising it was just another echo of the troubles going on deep in those foreign lands. They halted there for a moment, gazing north over the canopy of dark forest and the hazy outline of the distant Carpates Mountains. Gutthiuda; land of the Goths, and a cauldron of trouble for the imperial borders and the
limitanei
legions who manned them.

‘Every time I hear it,’ Sura said, ‘I feel my sword arm itch, and my shield arm tense. I’ll wager my savings that it’s Athanaric behind these rebel uprisings; anything to agitate Fritigern and endanger his truce with Rome.’

‘Aye, I have my doubts over this mooted peace parley with the man,’ Pavo agreed, squinting into the winter sun at the outline of the Carpates. Deep in those mountains, the belligerent Gothic Iudex was holed up with his war-hungry followers. There had been talk for some time of a group of diplomats being sent to Athanaric’s lands. The idea was that they could meet with the iudex and broker some truce, but the idea jarred with Pavo; at every turn, Athanaric had sought to bring trouble upon both the Roman borders and Fritigern’s lands. It was a blessing indeed that Fritigern held stock in his truce with Rome. ‘I just pray to
Mithras
that the vexillationes over there come back to us safe and well.’

Sura issued a gruff sigh beside him, pointing to the fort gates. ‘And if it’s not vexillationes heading north, its Emperor Valens draining man and sword to the east.’

Pavo turned and shook his head at the sight; a wagon laden with shimmering armour and arms rumbled from the fort gateway and across the walkway straddling the triple ditch. The driver whipped his horses into a canter towards the road that snaked east to the coast and the port town of Tomis. From there it would be shipped to Trapezus, then hauled overland to the eastern frontier and the war with Persia. This had become a common sight since last summer. First, a few of the
comitatenses
legions had been summoned east from the field army of Moesia, not enough to cause huge concern, as plenty more of the elite mobile legions remained. But then, as autumn arrived, more and more of them were plucked away, and just last month, the last two left. And then the entire field army of Thracia had followed.

Now, the limitanei were alone to man the borders while the populous lands to the south lay virtually unprotected, all the way to Constantinople. Inside the fort, the supply warehouse was an empty shell, and then there was the still and silent
fabrica.
The workshop had been out of use for some weeks now due to lack of wool, linen and iron with which to craft new garb, weapons and armour. War was pulling these lands apart from every direction, it seemed.

Pavo snorted and walked on; this was the calling of a legionary, just as it had been for his father, so it would be for him. Since joining the XI Claudia nearly a year ago, Pavo had grown into legionary life, developing a necessary callus over his heart. More importantly, the legions had saved him from a life of servitude. He suppressed a shudder as his mind flitted back to the death of his father and the descent into slavery that followed. All those years living in the stinking cellar of Senator Tarquitius’ villa in Constantinople. Images of the beatings, the violation and the murder of fellow slaves he had witnessed there barged into his mind uninvited.

He closed his eyes to blot out the memories, then he carried out the ritual that had kept him strong through those dark years; under his cloak, he touched a hand to the battered bronze
phalera
that hung from the leather strap around his neck. The legionary medallion was his one possession that linked him to his father.

He was roused from his thoughts by a tap-tapping of wooden training swords, a rumbling of hooves and barked orders. He looked up to see that they had reached the training field. Some two hundred men – cavalry, archers and legionaries – went about their daily drills, breath clouding in the air as they were put through their paces. As the pair made to walk on past the field, a voice called out.

‘Oi, you two! Over here!’

Pavo turned to see a silhouetted figure waving at them from the northern end of the field, where the recruits were being put through their paces. Even from this distance, Centurion Quadratus’ hulking build distinguished him from any other on the field. The big Gaul was a true veteran, one of the precious few who had served and survived in the legion since before Pavo enlisted. Indeed, Pavo thought, life expectancy in the limitanei was so short that he and Sura were also considered veterans, both at the ripe old age of just twenty one.

‘He’d better not be looking to use me as an example barbarian again,’ Sura cocked an eyebrow, touching a hand to his ribs and then wincing. ‘He made me look a right bloody idiot in front of those recruits.’

‘Aye, but you helped,’ Pavo smirked, then dodged a playful punch to the arm from his friend. ‘Now come on, I find it’s best not to keep him waiting.’

They cut across the training area, examining the goings-on around them. To the east of the field, a thock-thocking of iron splicing wood rang out from the newly constructed archery range. Here, the two
sagittarii
archers who had recently been sent to the fort stood dressed in scale-vests, ruby cloaks and conical helmets sporting nose-guards. They watched the legionaries’ dubious attempts at hitting the centre of the timber targets. This was the latest edict from Emperor Valens; all legionaries were to be trained to competence with the bow. It was a meagre balance for stripping the land of its legions, Pavo mused as he watched. One legionary hit the centre of the target and made to punch the air in celebration, when one of the sagittarii stopped him, shaking his head, pointing out some minimal distance between his strike and dead centre.

Then they came to the cavalry training area. Here, ten of the
turma
of thirty
equites
stationed at the fort were being put through their paces by their
decurion
. The commanding officer yelled at his Roman cavalry as, dressed only in boots and tunics, they practiced vaulting onto the saddle and then off again, repeating the motion over and over.

‘Come on, men, in time!’ The decurion barked. ‘If you can’t do it in time now then you’ll never manage it in full armour!’

Pavo sympathised, then he turned back to Centurion Quadratus. The big Gaul with the thick blonde moustache was berating a ragged group of some fifty young men in an even more ferocious manner. He grinned, reserving his sympathy for these lads instead, and made to stride forward.

‘Careful!’ Sura yelped, slapping a hand across Pavo’s chest.

Pavo stopped dead as the other twenty equites thundered past in full kit; mail shirts, iron helmets and ruby cloaks, frost spraying up in their wake. They rode their mounts around the training field, leaping over a raised timber bar erected on the far side before coming back round on another circuit. This time, as they approached, the decurion turned to them and roared; ‘Equites Sagittarii, loose!’ With this, the rearmost ten pulled bows from their backs and twisted in their saddles, still keeping pace with the foremost ten. Then they trained their sights on a battered post in the middle of the training field and, as one, loosed their arrows. Ten arrows hammered home, sending splinters of wood up into the air.

‘Thirty of them,’ Sura muttered, ‘when we need hundreds.’