Siege

What the fuck was happening?

‘Felix,’ Stumps breathed, seeing me in the periphery of his vision. ‘He’s the fucking killer. He tried to grab Linza!’ he shouted.

The words, like the sight before my eyes, made no sense.

‘What are you doing?’ I grilled my friend, certain that he was suffering a hallucination caused by his embattled mind. ‘That’s your cohort commander, Stumps! He’s no German! Put your weapon down!’

‘I know he’s not a German!’ my friend cried back, his voice breaking with stress.

‘Put your weapon down,’ Malchus growled.

‘No, sir!’ Stumps shouted back, unwavering. ‘Not until the guard arrives!’

I looked at Linza. She said nothing. She didn’t need to – I could see her fear. She was under no illusion. She knew whose throat my friend was holding a blade to.

But why?

‘Stumps, don’t do anything stupid,’ I urged.

‘No one do anything stupid,’ Albus put in, seeing that one of Malchus’s veterans was slowly reaching for his blade. At Albus’s words, the soldier moved his hand clear of his weapon.

And so we stood, my friend’s javelin at my commander’s neck, a scene as terrifying as it was bizarre – I knew that any moment could bring death, and that even when the weapons were lowered, the promise of bloodshed would not be silent.

My muscles quivered as we awaited the arrival of the guard force. I almost dropped in relief when I saw Centurion H at their helm.

‘What the fuck…’ he said, as uncomprehending as I had been.

‘H. Get this idiot’s javelin from my throat, or ram your blade into his thick skull. Either’s all right by me.’ Malchus spoke evenly, his savage eyes burning into Stumps’s own.

‘What are you playing at, Stumps?’ said H. ‘Lower your weapon. Do it now.’

‘He’s the killer, sir,’ Stumps insisted, unmoving. ‘We set a trap for him.’ My throat turned dry at the revelation. ‘We used her as bait, and he took it, sir. He tried to kill her. On the honour of the Seventeenth, and all the dead of my legion, he tried to kill her!’

‘You’re out of your fucking mind,’ Malchus snarled.

But one look at Linza told me that he was not. She had seen the fear on my face when Stumps had revealed how they’d trapped the man in front of them, and my fear had revealed her guilt. Guilt that she had kept me in the dark. Guilt that she would risk herself when she knew that I – selfishly – needed her.

I looked at Malchus, a man I admired. The embodiment of a soldier. I saw his eyes, then, and they were like a shark’s, empty of all emotion, filled only with the need to kill.

I knew then that it was all true.

Perhaps H saw the same. Perhaps that was why he drove his fist into Stumps’s skull, and not his blade. The second that my friend began to crumple, Malchus was drawing his own sword.

So were the two men on his shoulder.

So was I.

‘I can’t let you kill him, sir,’ H protested, straddling the man he had downed, his empty hands held up for calm.

My eyes met those of the two veterans on Malchus’s shoulder. My look delivered the same message as H’s, but there was nothing peaceful in my own stance – I’d gut them if they closed on my comrade.

Slowly, Malchus raised his hate-filled gaze to fall on to my face. I knew that he was sizing me up; he had enough respect for my fighting skills to take a moment to consider how best to kill me. I readied myself for that attack, but instead, the centurion let heavy words drop from his mouth.

‘Walk with me,’ he ordered, lowering his blade.

After a moment’s hesitation and a glance towards Linza, I followed.

51

Keeping myself clear of the reach of his sword, I walked with Malchus into the darkness of the stables. The building reeked of stale straw and dung, but the animals were long gone, their meat salted for winter. It was not a good place to die, and I was glad to see that the silhouette of Centurion H had followed us into the shadows.

I had expected that Malchus wanted me dead. Once I was silenced, it would be a simple matter of sentencing Stumps to death for attacking a superior officer. Linza could be killed at will. The incident would be forgotten, or at least hidden in the minds of those other men who wished to stay free of cold graves. H’s presence in the stables, however, now made me wonder whether, instead of bloodshed, it would be explanation that freed Malchus from his entanglement.

The one outcome I did not expect was that the centurion would casually admit to his crimes.

‘I was going to kill her,’ he said carelessly. ‘What does it matter?’

Such was his candour that it took moments for either myself or H to recover our senses.

‘Sir, it matters…’ H finally managed.

‘Why?’ Malchus asked without heat. ‘Have any of them been citizens? They’re all goat-fuckers, H. They just happened to end up on this side of the wall. We probably killed their sisters and cousins when we raided the camps. Did anyone care then?’

I had no words.

‘A soldier is a weapon,’ Malchus explained slowly, as if we were boneheaded children. ‘A blade. He has to be kept sharp. And how does a soldier do that? How does he keep sharp?’ he asked. ‘He. Has. To. Kill.’

‘Not our own people,’ H protested.

‘Have you not been listening, H?’ Malchus chided him. ‘They’re goat-fuckers. I wouldn’t touch a citizen.’ The cohort commander sounded as if the idea appalled him. ‘But if a few dead hairies keep the garrison on its toes and vigilant, then what’s the fucking problem?

‘We’re under siege, but there’re no warriors at our walls. You think the Syrians and the civvies will observe the rationing if they forget we’re cut off out here? You think our own boys do? I’ve had three punished for stealing rations just today!’

I had lived and breathed war for years, and in that time I had developed the mind of a warrior. The mind of a killer. I had had to, to survive, and that voice inside my head now stepped forth to speak.

He’s right, it told me. He’s doing what needs to be done.

There was part of me that believed that, as much as it disgusted me to admit it. Perhaps, if it wasn’t for the thought of Linza lying dead and butchered, the cold-hearted part of me could have accepted the words. After all, tens of thousands were already dead in this war. How many would follow? Was the death of half a dozen girls worth it to keep a garrison alert, and fighting? We were Roman, after all, and wasn’t the offering of sacrifice a cornerstone of the culture and the Empire’s religion?

I was saved from having to voice such dark words by the intervention of a better man.

‘Malchus, this has to stop.’ H spoke, deliberately dropping his superior’s rank. ‘It’s un-Roman.’ That was the term coined for anything the Empire deemed unseemly, and beneath them.

‘There’s nothing more Roman than killing barbarians,’ Malchus grunted. ‘And I’ll do as I want.’

‘Citizens or not, you’ve still broken the law.’

‘And who applies that law here? You think Caedicius will lose me to avenge a few girls? Grow up, you soft bastard.’

‘He’ll have to if enough people ask for your head,’ H insisted, unwilling to back down. ‘You’ve helped put this garrison on a knife-edge, Malchus. The people have torn down tyrants that ruled empires. They can tear down the second in command of a forgotten fort.’

Something in those words struck Malchus. It was a long time before he spoke.

‘The man who put his javelin up,’ he eventually rumbled, sour at the memory and the fact that H was correct in his prophecy. ‘He has to go. The girl too. That’ll be an end to it.’