Bad places to hide, thought Tullus, spying a shape covered by an old blanket in one gap, and opposite it, a second. Only a simpleton could think they wouldn’t be found here. That, or the legionaries who’d been in here had already been pissed out of their minds. He poked the first shape with the tip of his sword. ‘Get up,’ he ordered in German. ‘Now.’
With a resentful shrug, the blanket slid to the floor, revealing a freckle-faced girl of about ten years. Clad in a shapeless dress, she was barefoot. Rags or no, she was proud, glaring at Tullus despite the fear in her eyes. She stood, calling out in a soft voice to whoever was hidden opposite her.
The toe of a worn shoe was poking from under the second blanket. This had been the person Tullus had heard. ‘On your feet,’ he ordered.
There was a sigh, such as the old make when their joints hurt, and the covering fell away. An ancient woman, her face lined with deep wrinkles, stared at Tullus with calm resignation. ‘Kill us and be done.’
Tullus extended a hand and helped her up. The crone gasped with pain as she came fully upright. To Tullus’ surprise, she chuckled. ‘At least my hip won’t trouble me when I’m dead.’
It all made sense now, thought Tullus. Only a fool would stay behind in such a poor hiding place – or a child who wouldn’t leave her lame grandmother.
‘There’s no one in the pens, sir,’ said Piso, arriving with Vitellius. He eyed Tullus’ captives. A flicker of distaste passed across his friendly face. ‘D’you want me to finish them?’
If the two didn’t speak Latin, they understood his tone. The girl rushed to her grandmother’s side and clung to her. The old woman muttered something Tullus didn’t catch, but which might have been, ‘We won’t suffer.’
‘Shall I kill them, sir?’ repeated Piso. Vitellius stood ready beside him, his face a mask.
Is this what I am now? Tullus asked himself. What we are? Murderers of the helpless and infirm? He looked at the girl again, who was similar in size to Artio, and the old woman, who would have found it difficult to swat a fly, let alone harm his men. ‘No,’ he grated. ‘Vitellius, watch them. Piso, come with me.’
Like other longhouses, the walls had been built by fixing a lattice of small branches between wooden posts driven into the ground. The meshwork of branches had then been slathered with a generous covering of mixed clay, earth, dung and straw. Tullus found a spot in the back wall and slammed his heel against it. Brown clods broke away, and he stamped again, snapping a few branches. Using his sword to enlarge the gap, he soon created a hole large enough for the girl to get out. He peered outside, and was pleased to see the tree line no more than twenty steps away.
‘Make it large enough for the old woman,’ he ordered Piso. ‘Do it fast.’ Tullus could have sworn that Piso looked pleased – he certainly set to with a will.
‘You must go now,’ Tullus said to the pair. ‘Through the hole at the back. The forest is close. Our soldiers are no longer encircling the village, so you will be able to escape.’
They stared at him with disbelief.
Tullus repeated what he’d said. As the trumpets ordered the advance outside, he added, ‘Move! Someone might still come in. They won’t be so merciful.’
‘Merciful?’ the girl hissed, her eyes now wild with hate. ‘You call butchering the inhabitants of a village merciful?’
‘Move,’ Tullus ordered, pointing with his sword.
The girl’s grandmother whispered in her ear, and she quietened. Together they walked to the hole in the back wall. As Piso stood aside, he proffered a lump of bread. ‘You need this more than me,’ he said in broken German.
Again the girl seemed about to express her anger, but the old woman took the bread with gratitude. She urged her granddaughter outside. Then, easing herself into the hole, she glanced back at Tullus and gave him a nod, before also disappearing.
Tullus felt a little less soiled. He eyed Piso and Vitellius, who were waiting for him to speak. ‘Not a word about this to anyone, you understand? Not a fucking word. If I hear as much as a whisper, you’ll wish you had never been whelped, so help me.’
‘Aye, sir,’ they both muttered.
‘Outside,’ ordered Tullus.
He was emerging from the longhouse’s doorway when Tubero came riding up, his usual retinue behind him. As usual, the sight of Tullus made his lip curl. ‘I come to inspect your cohort, centurion, and instead find you ransacking a hovel for scraps like some common soldier. So much for the pride of the legions!’
A dutiful laugh rose from his staff officers, and Tullus’ temper, so often his bane, flared. ‘I wasn’t looking for food, sir. I heard something inside, and went to investigate.’
‘That’s more commendable. How many more did you kill?’
‘None, sir,’ replied Tullus, forcing a regretful expression on to his face. ‘It must have been a scavenging dog. There’s a hole in the back wall, you see.’
‘A dog?’ The disbelief was clear in Tubero’s voice. His gaze fell on Piso and Vitellius. ‘Did either of you set eyes on this dog?’
‘No, sir,’ said Vitellius, ‘but I heard it.’
‘Me too, sir,’ lied Piso with relish.
Tubero’s lips thinned, but his interest moved on. ‘Time to leave this shithole, centurion. Are your men ready?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I understand that the next village is larger than this. We’ll have to work hard to ensure that all of the Marsi filth are laid in the mud before dark. I expect your cohort to play its part.’
‘It will, sir, as ever,’ replied Tullus, wishing that a battle awaited, not another massacre.
With another contemptuous look, Tubero rode on to the next unit.
Tullus tried to find solace in the fact that he had saved two lives, but in the face of what they had done, and what awaited them a few miles away, it was impossible. The coming days would prove no better, he knew. The only choice left open to him was to wall off what happened – even to pretend it wasn’t happening – and carry on.
Perhaps there was one benefit to the mass slaughter, he decided. Germanicus’ campaign of death and destruction would attract Arminius’ attention in the same way as the screams of a wounded rabbit drew in a hunting fox.
To Tullus’ frustration, Arminius and his Cherusci warriors did not materialise during the following days. Unhindered, the legions and auxiliaries laid waste to every Marsi settlement that they found. News of their presence spread fast, and a good number of the villages were deserted by the time the army arrived. It was a secret relief to Tullus, although he admitted that to no one.
They found no sign of the eagle mentioned by Degmar. Numerous chieftains and tribal priests died under torture ordered by Germanicus, protesting that they knew nothing. The prisoners were either telling the truth, Tullus concluded, or regarded the eagle as a prize worth dying for. Either way, the Romans’ failure to locate even one golden standard – most particularly for Tullus, that of the Eighteenth – boded ill for their recovery.
He drank a lot of wine during the month-long campaign.
The Romans’ brutal tactics soon provoked the local tribes – the Bructeri, Usipetes and Tubantes – to take up arms. Wary of confronting Germanicus’ heavily armed legionaries in open battle, they began to harass the force as it marched back to the Rhenus, the job of restoring morale complete. They attacked the Romans inside forested areas, as Arminius had done, where the legions could not deploy in their usual battle formations. Over a two-day period, more than half a dozen assaults were made on the miles-long column. Scores of soldiers were killed and injured, but discipline remained good, limiting the tribesmen’s success. On the third day, knowing that Germanicus’ host would soon reach the relative safety of open ground, they attacked in greater force, striking hardest at the rear.