I didn’t ask what that was, but H told me anyway.
‘He wanted to gut the man alive so that the dogs could eat at him. Poetic end, he said.’
‘Gods,’ I swore. Even after I had seen what Malchus was capable of, he had still managed to surprise me.
‘The man’s a fucking monster,’ H agreed. ‘I looked up to that bastard.’
That was no surprise – who hadn’t? Aside from the few that knew the truth, Malchus was still a hero to all in the fort.
‘Caedicius wants discipline but he’s not sick,’ H summarized. ‘And he’s not stupid, either, Felix. I could see tonight that the fact Romans are eating dog – intentionally or otherwise – has shown him how truly fucked we are here.’
‘He doesn’t think we can hold through winter?’
‘He knows that it doesn’t matter if we do. No one’s coming, winter or spring. Where are the legions going to come from – the Emperor’s arse? Everyone is pretending that we didn’t lose three legions in the forest. There is no relief coming, no matter when. The Rhine is the frontier now, and if it isn’t coming to us…’
‘…we have to go to it,’ I finished, for the idea was simple. It was the execution that mattered.
‘I have a plan,’ H told me then. ‘An idea to get your friend out of his execution, and to get us to the Rhine.’
I could hear in his tone that he believed both things were truly possible. What I could not understand was why he was telling me this on the fort’s walls, instead of putting them into action.
I looked at his face, which had once held nothing but humour, but was now a mask broken by war.
‘Why are you telling me this, H?’ I asked.
‘Because I need you, Felix. I need you to volunteer for something that you shouldn’t expect to come back from.’
Dawn crept over the horizon like a cloaked assassin, thick clouds heavy against a dark sky. There was death coming with the rising gloom, and I had thought of nothing else since H had left me on the battlements to set his plan in motion.
The replacement sections joined our own on the walls. We stood double watch as the darkness slid away, once again revealing nothing before us but frostbitten fields and forests – the terror today would come from within our camp, not without.
It was with a sour stomach and swimming mind that I marched with my century to the parade square. So far as I knew, I was the only one aware of what would await us there. I considered warning my friends, but what would be gained by telling them? No, I’d rather spare them a few moments’ worry in a life that was already soaked in it.
‘This had better not have anything to do with cutting rations again,’ Stumps grumbled. He was walking as stiffly as a corpse from the beating I’d delivered.
‘Can’t cut them any more.’ Livius, our new section commander, tried to smile. ‘My belly button’s already poking out of my back.’
‘Things will change when I get into the QM’s,’ Stumps promised. ‘Consummate professional, I am.
‘What’s up with you?’ he asked me then, irritated at the lack of conversation.
‘Tired,’ I lied, my limbs alive with nervous dread at the thought of what was to come.
‘Bollocks.’ He spat. ‘I’ve seen that look before. You’re either gonna do something stupid, or you’re feeling sorry for yourself. Maybe both. Is it the girl?’ he pressed.
‘Yes,’ I lied again. The truth was that my mind had been so full of worry for Titus, so full of nerves at what H had proposed, that I had had little time to think over my romantic failure.
‘Century!’ Albus called as we reached the parade square. ‘Halt!’
Hobnails tramped down into the packed dirt, frost cracking beneath our feet. Our halt was ragged, a reflection of our state of mind.
‘That was a fucking abortion,’ Albus barked, though I doubted he was in any mood for drill practice between the endless rotations of guard duties.
Limbs soon began to cool as we waited on the square. Coming off watch, we were one of the first subdivisions to arrive. Gradually, the space at the camp’s centre began to fill with blocks of legionaries and archers, and the scattered mass of civilians – the men on the wall aside, all within the fort were obliged to witness what was to come.
‘Maybe the Emperor’s dropped in to boost morale,’ Stumps quipped to a few chuckles amongst the men.
I was silent, my eyes on the headquarters building whence I expected the officers and the condemned to emerge.
They came not long after, Caedicius and Malchus at the fore, the stone-faced pair followed by two sections of soldiers. It was impossible for me to glimpse the prisoners in their midst. When they came to a halt in the centre of the parade square I cursed my position – I could see neither Titus nor his partners, surrounded as they were by shield and armour. What I could see was the wooden block that was thumped menacingly down in front of the fort’s commanders.
Immediately, the men around me either drew breaths or forced them out, muscles tightening as they realized what the block implied, shoulders then sagging as they remembered they were safe within the ranks.
The square was as silent and unkind as the clouded sky.
Caedicius stepped forwards. ‘I told you I wanted discipline,’ he began, his deep voice booming and bouncing from the cold wooden buildings that surrounded us. ‘I told you this. I told you how we should behave as Romans. How we needed to behave to survive.
‘You have failed me.’ He spoke sadly. ‘You have failed yourselves. But worst of all, you have failed Rome.’
A long silence held over the square then, broken only by unruly children who shuffled irritably in the arms of their parents. Gripped by cold, a baby at the far end of the square began to wail. It was a long, plaintive cry. When Malchus stepped forwards, I wondered if he was enjoying the child’s discomfort.
‘These prisoners’, Malchus began, his voice cutting over the cries of the baby, ‘have been seeking to profit through selling and trading rations that were intended for the garrison as a whole. For that—’ He stopped then as the baby doubled its efforts. ‘Get that fucking baby off my parade square!’ he roared, and I saw a woman run from the ranks. Despite the imminent death, or because of it, a ripple of laughter broke out amongst the soldiers.
Malchus heard it. ‘You do not fucking laugh!’ he bellowed at the assembled troops, his hand pointed like a blade. ‘You do not speak! You do not eat unless you are ordered to! You do not shit, until you are ordered to! This is what happens when you think of yourself first, and not Rome!’ He swept out his arm. At the gesture, a limp form was dragged forwards by two soldiers.
Plancus. The man’s neck dropped heavily on to the chopping block. Perhaps fear had taken over his limbs, for any fight seemed to have left him. More than likely, Malchus had already beaten every inch of his body.
Prefect Caedicius stepped forwards. After a look at the shaking man before him, he addressed his words to the parade. ‘Legionary Plancus is guilty of stealing rations from his legion during a time of war and siege. For this crime, he is sentenced to death. Centurion Malchus, carry out the sentence.’
Malchus drew the blade. I could only imagine the look of savage contentment on his taut face.
I could have looked away then, or shut my eyes. I don’t know why I didn’t. Instead, I watched Malchus bring the longsword over in a looping arc. Instantly I – like every other seasoned soldier in the ranks – knew that it was a bad stroke.
The blade bit across the back of Plancus’s shoulders. A hideous scream cut through the assembled ranks like a chariot’s scythed blades.
Malchus pulled his weapon free of flesh, and I had no doubt that he was smiling now, exacting his vengeance. He was too good a swordsman for such a poor stroke, and the look on Caedicius’s face told me that he knew it too. I saw the prefect’s lips move, and I wondered if he was urging the man to finish the job quickly.