‘If Arminius comes again, we’ll all be fucked.’ Stumps spoke up gloomily from the edge of his bunk.
Linza was with us, sitting at the end of my own bed and feeding sticks of wood into a small fire that was seeing off the worst of the autumn chill. Hard cold had followed the rains that had masked the young girl’s death, but flame and the warmth of bodies did enough to take the nip from the barrack-room air.
‘They wouldn’t come again though, would they,’ Linza stated rather than asked, the light of the flames rippling over her stoic face.
Every person in the garrison could see the truth of that now. Winter would do what Arminius could not. Through stockpile and the stripping of surplus buildings, there was enough firewood in the camp to survive two winters. But food was at a premium; even fishing in the river was doing little to bolster rations now that winter was placing its icy hand on the German lands.
‘You know what I miss?’ Stumps grumbled in an attempt to lighten the mood. ‘A big, fat, wobbling arse. Even Brando’s looks like a plank of wood now.’
The Batavian, whose face and long limbs had become considerably leaner, was in no mood for humour. The death of his best friend Folcher, and the guilt that he felt for the fate of Balbus, had silenced him in all but prayers and the acknowledgment of orders. And yet I had hope for the man.
I looked at Stumps. After the forest, he had been a shell of the man I had known in the summer camp of Minden. Having escaped slavery, Stumps had then wanted to do nothing but drink, and escape his memories. Linza was beginning to change that, I could see. We were far from being happy with our lot in life, but we were finding a reason to live with the memories, rather than to try and drink or fight our way into forgetting them. She was a reminder that there was more to our existence than as parts of death’s machinery.
Of course, I was aware enough to know that there was another reason I wanted the blond-haired woman around.
‘You got any sisters with fat arses?’ Stumps smiled at Linza, the question a happy and oft-repeated staple of their conversations.
‘You’re too short for them,’ the Batavian girl answered as always. ‘They like tall men. Real men,’ she teased, and I caught Stumps’s knowing look – I wasn’t much taller than my friend, and Linza was not far from my equal.
I let the two continue their usual dialogue of finding a suitably fat-arsed wife for Stumps. Though it was days since discovering the dead girl in the rain, my mind continued to slip back to that alleyway and my thoughts as to the identity of her killer. The more I mulled over the murders, the more I became certain that it was a servant of Arminius who had carried out the crimes – terror was splitting a garrison as well as any breach in the fort’s walls could have done.
I thought again of approaching the garrison’s command with my suspicion, but quickly dismissed the idea. To begin with, a soldier does not simply walk to the headquarters building and ask for an audience with its commander – I would have to go through my chain of command, and that meant Albus, my new centurion. Albus, a veteran long in the tooth, would look on any such venture as more work for himself and his century. The old soldier’s maxim of ‘never volunteer’ held just as well for information as it did suicidal missions.
I chided myself for my thoughts then, and wondered at my hubris. Prefect Caedicius had not reached his station through incompetence, and Malchus lived and breathed war in all its forms. Both officers would have come to the same conclusion as myself. Appearing at their door and rubbing it into their faces – because what else was it, when they had found no solution? – would do nothing to stop the terror and the internal hostility of the garrison, and do a lot to see me on latrine duty until the end of my days.
‘Welcome back,’ Stumps smirked, seeing me emerge from my considerations. ‘He does that a lot,’ he said to Linza, who was sharing the same grin. ‘Have you noticed?’
She poked me. ‘Maybe we are not good enough company?’
I laughed it off. My laugh was cracked and quiet, but it was a laugh. I was proud of that. ‘A lot on my mind.’
‘Ah, the dizzying heights of section commander!’ Stumps cackled. ‘That why you’re always so quiet, Micon? Lot on your mind?’
‘What?’
‘Exactly.’
‘I should go now,’ Linza announced. ‘It’s almost time to draw the rations.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ Stumps offered.
‘You have forgotten the menu? I can carry it in one hand.’
‘Yeah, but I haven’t seen Titus in a while. He’s a scary-looking bastard, but he can’t sleep unless he knows I’m around to look after him.’
Linza frowned. ‘You saw him yesterday.’
‘Well, anyway, I’ll come with you. Too nice a day to stay indoors.’
Linza looked at me, the corner of her lip twitching as she wondered whether she should smile openly, or pretend casually that she did not mind leaving me. I knew what was on her mind, because I was thinking the same. We settled on half-smiles that must have looked moronic to our friend.
Stumps then turned to me as the pair left the room, and I met his eyes with a look of thanks – he wasn’t going to see Titus, but was acting as escort for our friend. Should something happen to Linza, we both sensed that what was left of our sanity would flee. Linza was more than a companion to us, she was our anchor, and with that peaceful surety as comforting as any blanket, I lay back on to my bunk, and happily closed my eyes.
I knew that the nightmares would not come for me.
50
The nightmares did not come for me, but Centurion Albus did.
‘Oi. Felix. Oi! Wake up, you bastard! Oi!’
‘What is it?’ I asked, sitting up quickly.
Our century was not on duty that night, but the veteran’s worried tone was beginning to unnerve me. Yet there was no sound of an alarm. No clash of battle.
‘Just come with me.’ The man gestured, hurriedly.
‘I’ll get my kit—’
‘No time for that, just follow me, for fuck’s sake! Come on!’ he urged as I tied my sandals, grabbed my sword belts and pulled a cloak about my shoulders.
The cold air slapped me in the face as we stepped into the darkness. The air was dry, and I felt its chill pull at my skin.
‘What’s going on, Albus?’ I asked, seeing that we were the only men to emerge from the barrack block.
‘Your friend’s gone and stepped in it,’ was all that he told me as he took a blazing torch from its mounting on the wall. ‘He’s really fucking stepped in it.’
‘Who?’
‘Stumps, you arse,’ he hissed. ‘Now hurry up. Follow me!’
Albus broke into a run, and I kept pace alongside him. As we sped through the deserted streets of the fort, a hundred questions bounced inside my mind as to what Stumps could have stepped into. The answer was clearly trouble, but what kind? I prepared myself for the worst, expecting that my friend had got drunk and spilled blood in a brawl.
I could not have been more wrong, nor could anything have prepared me for what I saw as we took the corner into the alleyway behind the fort’s empty stables.
Stumps had not spilled blood, but, javelin in hand, he was prepared to – the point of his weapon was aimed at the throat of a soldier.
Centurion Malchus.
Such was my confusion with the scene before my eyes that it took me a moment to register Linza’s presence in the shadows. She was panting, Stumps’s short sword in her hand. The blade was bloodied, and I followed her eyes to two snarling veterans who stood at Malchus’s back. Their own blades were sheathed, but one soldier was clutching a wound on his arm.