The Mammoth Book of Roman Whodunnits (11 page)

Here in the hostages’ pen at least they looked smarter because of the comparison with our prisoners.

They were an odd assortment. The king’s relations had uniformly broad shoulders, but they weren’t tall, and their rickety legs spoke of malnutrition. Two had lost a lot of teeth; I think it was the scurvy got them because of bad harvests. The way these natives tried to farm was laughable,
and many starved even when the weather was kind. All were tattooed, with various black and green swirls adorning their cheeks, foreheads, arms and breasts. God knows why pagans do that. It must hurt like hell.

The dead boy’s uncle (he had a very long name – I’ll call him “Verc” because that’s the nearest I can get to it) was at his side, tears of rage dropping from his sallow cheeks. He was heavily tattooed, with the drawn features of a man who has suffered hunger and the pain of loss. Deep-set eyes met mine unflinchingly. Behind him were the cousins of the dead man, as though ordered away, so that Verc could denounce us and demand compensation without risking their lives. I felt a fleeting respect for him at the sight.

One, a lad called “Trin” by us, stood back at the wall, his black eyes restless, going from one to another of us, like a man who was about to spring an attack, and I gripped my sword more tightly as I met his gaze. The stupid arse was actually thinking of making a break for it, and I motioned with my hand to the men behind me to block the entrance. There was a sturdy gate for the stockade, and my lads pulled it across quickly, the guards remaining outside sliding the bar across to lock it. Only then did the lad seem to realize he had no escape. Like a trapped dog, he glared and walked up and down, but made no attempt on us.

There were three in there who were my own personal comrades. Pugio, named after the dagger made from a cut-down
gladius
, was well named. Short, dark, wiry, with high cheekbones and narrow features, his eyes were suspicious and sharp in a face already scarred from a hundred fights; he was as unforgiving as a whore from Syracuse. Quick to anger, it took the three of us to calm him when he felt insulted. Once, I remember all of us dragging him to the ground when he thought a man cursing a dog had referred to his own ancestry. The man had been a legionnaire, but that wouldn’t
hold him back, not Pugio. If he thought he’d been maligned, he would strike. But for all that, Pugio was loyal and steadfast as I had learned during the landing from the sea. If you were standing in line waiting for the enemy, you didn’t want a better man at your side.

Certainly he was better than the man we all called Consul. He was a languid, tall, well-bred man, with the ability to sneer at his superiors without their being able to respond, he was so careful in his language. His hair was a peculiar light shade, and some had said that his mother had been a slave from one of the northern tribes, which maybe explained his pale complexion too, but I don’t know. He never spoke to me of his family. When we hunkered down around the fire at night, there were better things to discuss. Women, booze . . . you know the sort of stuff. I always reckoned he had a miserable time of it, because he seemed to have some breeding. Know what I mean? He was from a leading family, all right. That’s what I thought.

And then there was As, named after the tiny coin. It takes sixteen copper “as” to make one
denarius
, so you can guess what he was like. Short, stunted, permanently sniffing as though he had a cold, always pot-bellied, with a pair of broken teeth in the front of his mouth when he smiled, breath reeking, he was the worst nightmare of a decent centurion, which was why our own averted his gaze whenever he caught sight of As. The little man was perpetually grinning. Oddly, he hardly looked a professional killing machine. Not many of us did. That meant keeping clean and weapons shining. None of us could manage that in a good summer, let alone at the grim beginning of a damp winter. At least with his clear grey eyes gazing out from his pox-scarred face he looked like a killer of sorts, especially when you saw the lunatic expression in his face. It wasn’t his fault, but he was dim to the point of real stupidity, and that
look can scare the bravest. He had the
look
of a man who enjoyed killing for killing’s sake. It took a brave man to stand in front of him.

Yet for all his apparent murderousness, he wasn’t really violent. The only fights he ever got into were the ones he was supposed to: protecting the legion’s honour, or saving his mates when they were drunk and legionnaires from another cohort started ripping into us.

Mind you, then he was a demon.

The boy was lying on his back when I first saw him. He’d been on his face before, I saw, because nearby was the starting point of all the blood. It lay in a vast puddle, soaking into the ground, and the little shack reeked of it.

I never knew his name. All about him were the other hostages, and the one who squatted like an animal was Verc, eyeing me with unblinking rage. The others behind him were snivelling. As the gate shut, Verc rose to his feet, his tattooed face working with fury. He shouted at me, pointing at the boy, then shouted again, spittle flying. Even as I sighed and bellowed for a translator, I knew it was unnecessary. This big bastard with the mudstained shirt and britches was asking what value were my sureties now, since one of the lads had already started killing the hostages.

He was a good-looking boy, too, the dead one. The sort a man would have been proud of. Wide mouth, broad forehead, strong chin, exactly the sort that the matrons would go for in the gladiators’ ring. His hair was a dusky brown, the still-open eyes dark and serious, but there was a bit of a smile at the corner of his mouth.

“Some reckon that when a man dies, you can see the face of the last person he saw in his eyes,” As said.

“Bollocks,” Consul said. “Do you see the slaughterman’s face in the boar’s head when it’s carried to your table?”

“Never had a boar’s head,’ As said glumly, but then shot a vicious glance at his elegant companion. “Not being a fucking patrician like you.”

“Shut it, both of you,” I snapped, but I studied the body. All I could see in his eyes was a certain calmness, as though he’d thought he was about to go to sleep. It meant nothing. Trouble was, I was depressed. The only men who could have done this were behind me. My own group. All the hostages were his family. I can remember thinking:
they
wouldn’t kill the king’s son, would they?

In theory there were eighty men in our century when it was up to complement, but how often does a century have the luxury of a full complement while it’s on campaign? Never, in my experience. There are always men who dodge the selection, and once the legion marches, illness, cowardice, death in battle and desertion mean that the numbers are reduced steadily. Especially under a leader like ours. Our centurion was determined to make a name for himself in Gaul, and he’d risk any number of us to win it. He’d shown that when we landed.

Our cohort was formed of six centuries of maybe sixty men in each, after the ferocious battles in Gaul of the past year, and especially after the fighting to land here in Britain. The natives had thrown everything they had, rocks, bullets from slings, arrows, the lot. While I stood on the ship, two men beside me were struck down by the mad bastards. It made the lads anxious about making the jump down into the deep water. Well, not surprising. Our ship was made for deep waters, not for shelving sands. It stood high over the water, and the water itself was obviously deep. In the end it was the
aquilifer
, the man who held the standard of the Xth legion, who leaped in and exhorted his mates to get down there to protect him. He’ll not do badly; there’ll be a good reward for
the mad arse. After all, any good general knows that his men only follow so long as there’s good chances for money and slaves.

Still, after the fight there were only maybe three hundred and sixty in the cohort instead of the complement of four hundred and eighty, so you can see that the general was not going to be happy. What? You need to ask
why
?

Look, when you’re over there, in some land you know sod-all about, apart from the bits and pieces of intelligence you’ve gleaned from dodgy spies (who are as likely to be working for the enemy as for you, spying out your strengths and weaknesses to sell to the best bidder); when you’ve already had one hard fight; when the lads are tired; when you don’t know how many enemy hordes there are and you depend on the sea for your escape, with all the risks
that
entails; well, the most important thing is, to keep the locals subjugated. Keep them quiet. Make them feel that they’re better off tolerating you than trying to kill you. Right?

Right. So you go in heavy, grab the most important leaders you can, and hold them hostage against the good behaviour of the tribe. It makes sense. Nine times out of ten, they’ll do what we want. Some of the hostages get to like our life so much, it’s hard to get rid of them later, but the tribes don’t know that. They assume that their leaders are being held in foul conditions, because that’s how they’d treat us; it’s impossible to get them to realise the benefits of civilization. Well, how could they? They haven’t the foggiest idea. Poor devils, living in their cold, draughty huts, sleeping on a pile of rags on packed earth floors, if they were lucky . . . that’s why we have a
duty
to invade them. It’s their destiny – and ours. We have to lead them, and in the end they will learn to appreciate the benefits of Roman culture.

But I’m getting away from the point. Point is: we’re safe while we’ve got our hostages, but if it gets known that one of
us killed one of them, especially a king’s son, that doesn’t leave us in a strong position. In fact, it leaves us in a shite position. So the general, he’d come down on us like a ton of lead. It could mean crucifixion for the daft bugger who killed that little sod. Or worse.

While we waited for the translator, I glanced at the three of them. Pugio, As and Consul. Strange that none of us ever used our given names. We all lived with our nicknames. Pugio: Dagger – it wasn’t hard to see where the most believable murderer was.

Consul caught my eye. I jerked my head at him and he followed me to the corner of the stockade, leaving As and Pugio to guard the remaining men.

“What is it?” Consul asked laconically.

“What happened?”

He smiled. “We were all outside the enclosure so far as I know. I certainly was. I remained out at the gate itself. I was there all night.”

“Did you fall asleep?”

“I remained standing,” he said, eyeing me pityingly. “How about you?”

“Piss off! I was asleep, true, but at least I can’t have killed anyone,” I hissed. There had been certain rumours, and I stepped forwards, forcing him to retreat until his back was against the stockade’s wall. “Did you see anyone?”

“No. No one. Not after the Centurion.”

“What did that prick want?”

“He just went in to inspect our hostages.” Consul gave a chuckle. “He looks on them as his own property, I think.”

His words made my heart thrill. “Could he have killed the boy?”

“Not a chance!” Consul said scathingly. “I was there, I kept my eyes on them, and there was nothing amiss when the
Centurion left. He just walked in, stared at them, and walked out. I shut the gate and barred it after him.”

“I see. What of your ‘Little Flower’?”

“Well, you know,” he said easily.

“No, I don’t. Tell me!”

His teeth flashed. “She was busy early on, but yes, she tripped past later and waggled her arse at me. It was all I could do not to leap on her right there, but she wouldn’t have been grateful, not in this climate. It’s too cold.”

“So you left your post at the gate?”

“Only for a short while,” he protested. “Some of us were asleep! But yes, I did. And she’ll confirm it.”

“I’m sure she bloody will,” I grunted, but it was easily believable. He’d been slotting this little tart ever since they met in port waiting to sail, and I’d never known him miss a night. No army can manage without women and, to be fair, this one was pleasing, with all the right curves and a tempting grin. “Did you hear anything while you were on duty? Did you hear Pugio or As making a racket? Shouting at the hostages or anything? If the hostages provoked them, maybe . . .”

“Nothing like that, no. There were snores from all over, especially in here, and unsettled sleepers, but I’d swear that the lot were asleep.” He gave me a sympathetic shrug. “We both know what happened, don’t we?”

“Yeah,” I grunted.

It was while we were returning to this camp with the hostages. The king’s boy had slowed and gazed about him as he was brought into our makeshift fort, staring about him with obvious awe, but with some calculation too, assessing the best means of attack. It was Pugio who was nearest, and he used the butt of his lance to urge the boy on. Instantly the boy whirled, eyes blazing at being mistreated, and seeing the tatty figure of Pugio, he hawked and spat at Pugio’s feet.
Pugio glanced down at the gob of phlegm at his feet, and before he could thrust the
pilum
through the arrogant little sod’s face, Consul and I jumped on him and calmed him.

But Pugio came from a hot-blooded people. Insults like that spit rankled. And a man like Pugio didn’t like to leave the sun to go down on his revenge. He preferred his vengeance still nicely warm.

So Consul had left his post. He had gone with his waggle-tailed whore to while away a good portion of his watch, rather than standing at the gate. That meant anyone could have lifted the bar and entered, walked inside and stabbed the boy with a lance or knife.

Except . . .

Now I was new to this life of soldiering, but I’d seen enough corpses to know what a wound looked like. The boy’s chest had been stabbed once, heavily, by a broad-bladed weapon. It had entered deeply, although not through to the back, and when pulled back, it had sucked or pulled the inner flesh with it. Perhaps a barbed blade, I wondered, looking at it more closely.

When I heard the translator arrive, it was a relief. Gazing at the body was merely a means of avoiding asking Pugio whether he had murdered the lad. I didn’t want to ask, because I didn’t want to hear him lie – and still less did I want to hear him confess. That would mean a short walk to the cross, or perhaps to the tribe whose prince he had killed. The thought of that was repellent, but Pugio had endangered the whole legion by killing this piece of carrion.