‘Then there’s an army at the walls, and she’s days away from getting raped to death. She’s got no control over that. All right, the hairy bastards have pulled back now, but we’re still cut off. She’s got no control over that.’
‘And then the killings in the fort,’ I whispered, beginning to understand.
‘Exactly. Imagine it. She’s got no control over any part of her life, but she’s a fucking strong girl. She’s a fucking fighter. She found a way she could hit back.’
‘You still shouldn’t have let her do it,’ I accused.
‘Let her?’ He laughed. ‘If you think you can control this girl, then you’re in for some sleepless nights. The bad kind,’ he added with a wry smile.
I said nothing. Instead I thought back over Stumps’s explanation. Of course he was right. Linza was no one’s to control, and she was a fighter. Those were the qualities that had pulled me into love once more, and so why should I be surprised by them?
‘You just don’t like other people sticking their necks out,’ Stumps piped up, reading my face and thoughts. ‘You’re obsessed with control, Felix.’
I shook my head. ‘I’m not.’
‘You are,’ he insisted. ‘Dangerous mission? Yes please. Suicidal mission? Oh yes. Trying to keep everyone else from danger except you? Oh, shit, yes!’
‘It’s not that…’
‘I remember your face when you found me on that raid, like I had betrayed you by going. You tried to keep Brando and Folcher from them too, I know.’
‘And look what happened to Folcher,’ I countered.
‘Ha! There! See? There it is. You think you can save everyone, you daft old bastard.’
‘I don’t,’ I told him, remembering the day when that truth had been taught to me.
‘Well, you try to,’ my friend told me gently.
He was right, I realized then. He was right. It all began with her, and my failure to keep her safe. As if a bandage was unravelling before my eyes, the purpose of all my later actions began to show clear.
‘You want to tell me about her?’ my comrade offered with a smile.
‘I do,’ I admitted.
But then I heard a door crash open, and the rasp of blades being drawn.
Stories would have to wait.
We were under attack.
56
I moved quickly to the door, holding a finger to my mouth to silence any question from Stumps. Outside, I heard the bark of challenge. Of command.
The voices were Roman.
‘Lie face down on the floor!’ one voice shouted. ‘Hands away from your weapons! Face down!’
I suddenly realized that it was a raid, not an attack. There was scant relief in that fact, because we were on grounds that – though tolerated until now – broke legion law. More than this, my friend Titus was the architect of the flagrant flaunting of regulations.
‘It’s a raid,’ I mouthed to Stumps, who hadn’t moved from his position.
Courses of action ran through my mind as I listened to the sound of barked orders and furniture being turned on its head. Black markets and drinking holes had existed within the legions for as long as the eagle standards had been carried, and the clampdowns that came against them were a periodic reminder from the hierarchy not to overstep. As such, I wasn’t particularly worried about our physical safety – I was certain that our punishment for being caught in such a place would be nothing more severe than extra work duties on some unsavoury task. I was about to suggest to Stumps that we walk out openly, until I heard one voice raised above the others.
‘Get them lined up against the wall.’
Malchus. I looked at Stumps, who had turned ashen as he heard the murderer’s voice, and for good reason: Malchus would use any opportunity to break the man who had held a javelin to his throat.
I quickly searched our surroundings. The sole window was high, and would have been a struggle for Stumps to reach even if he were fully fit. As it was, I had beaten my friend to the point where he moved like a cripple.
‘Over here,’ I mouthed silently.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Help me move these.’ I gestured to stacks of pick-helves on a shelf; then I started lifting the bundled tool handles and placing them gently on the floor.
‘Why?’
‘Just do it,’ I urged.
It took only moments to clear the space that I needed.
‘You’re going in there,’ I told my friend.
‘Have you lost your head?’
I didn’t answer. The voices outside were growing nearer. With a sour look, Stumps pulled himself into the cleared space.
‘Felix—’ he tried, but I was already piling the bundles of wooden handles back in front of the man, my heart beating faster as the angry calls from the outside dropped away. It was the signal that they had gathered together their culprits, and that they would now begin searching. I hurried to place the last bundle of helves on to the shelves, and then lunged for the brazier, desperate to distance myself from my comrade’s concealment.
The door opened a moment later: two soldiers. They held wooden staves in their hands. They had come to beat, not to kill.
‘Who are you?’ the older of the pair asked.
‘Friend of the quartermaster’s,’ I answered. ‘We were Seventeenth together.’
‘You one of the ones that got out of the forest?’ the younger man asked, interested.
I nodded.
‘What was it like?’
I had no time to reply as the older of the pair waved the question away.
‘Come with us,’ he ordered me. ‘Anyone else with you?’
‘No. I was having a drink here and waiting for him to come back. I heard the noise outside and thought it better to wait here.’
‘Smart bloke,’ the veteran conceded. ‘We did have to crack a few heads in there. No need for that if you play along though.’
‘Of course,’ I answered earnestly before placing my hands on my head and walking towards the pair. They moved to the side of the door, and as I passed between them I saw the effect of Malchus’s raid – not one piece of furniture was left unturned, and with their noses against a wall were the twenty or so men and women who had been enjoying wine and dice until the doors had crashed open.
‘Over to the wall,’ the older of the pair instructed me.
‘You,’ I heard growled then. ‘Why the fuck are you here?’
Malchus again. His predatory eyes had fallen on me instantly.
‘I was with the QM in the Seventeenth, sir,’ I explained. ‘The same century.’
Malchus’s jaw jutted out as he bit back and accepted my reason. I reached the wall, my nose pressing into the cold wood.
‘All of you,’ Malchus then ordered. ‘Turn around.’
We complied. The tall centurion was flanked by two dozen men of his own century. Standing beside him was a soldier I recognized as one of Titus’s doormen.
‘Who runs it?’ Malchus demanded.
The doorman’s hand began to raise.
‘You fucking snitch!’ a voice called out, only to be silenced with a blow of the wooden handles, the sound like slapping leather.
‘Keep your mouths shut!’ one of Malchus’s veterans barked, as much of a hound as his leader.
‘Point them out,’ Malchus snapped. The doorman’s hand raised again. As his finger indicated each target, a pair of soldiers came forwards to pull the accused from the line-up, and bound the culprit’s wrists behind their backs.
Plancus was the first, the man’s pathetic hobbling drawing a grimace from Malchus. Next came Metella, her head back and indignant. Finally, Titus was fingered as one of the racket’s three ringleaders.
‘Centurion,’ Titus greeted the cohort commander in a voice as calm as a dead sea. ‘It’s a pleasure to see you here. Your lads have been quite the regulars.’