Bidding his horse good night, the cavalry commander wandered out into the gloomy dusk, marvelling at the sight of the camp around them. Already a rampart some ten to twelve feet high in places enclosed a vast camp, that embankment itself surrounded by twin ditches each fifteen feet wide and ten deep. Even as the light failed, sections of the army were still at work, hacking the small projecting branches from timbers that would tomorrow be used to construct a covered gallery atop the mound throughout the entire circuit to protect the men from stray missile fire. And the entire system would be punctuated with intermittent three-storey towers. Mamurra had launched into his task with the enthusiasm typical of an engineer. The covered timber walkway would be protected by a willow fence formed such that the sharpened points projected defensively outwards, and the natural flexibility of the material turned blades without taking damage far more thoroughly than solid timber. The ditches’ outer edges were vertical, threatening to break the limbs of the first men to fall in and hamper any attack, while the inner faces were angled perfectly so as to provide no shelter from missiles cast from the rampart top. The gates were equally powerful and would be defended by high towers of their own.
When Varus had queried the necessity for such a powerful fortification, Caesar had smiled. His twin purpose made sense. Firstly, to intimidate the Gauls; and it must have done that for, though the enemy had initially hovered at the crest of their hill, constantly surging back and forth as if eager to tackle the Romans and only held back by the will of their commanders, once the rising rampart had become evident from a distance, the enemy had retreated within their own camp once more.
And with the distinct possibility that the army might be here for a while, there would be the need to forage for supplies. It provided a little security to note that such a defence protected the camp at any time when up to a quarter of the force might be absent securing food.
A raucous laugh drew his attention as he strode through the camp back towards his own lines, and his eyes were drawn to a tent on the via decumana. At the edge of the Eleventh’s section, the centurions’ and the signifers’ tents sat slightly apart, marked by the presence of the century’s standards and flags and two soldiers on miserable, cold guard duty.
The centurion’s tent bore the insignia of the First cohort. The loud laugh had belonged to the primus pilus, then. As Varus slowed near the tent, he could see through the open door the figures of two men he vaguely recognised deep in laughter and conversation, and deep in their cups too from the sound of it.
‘…and the tribune – one of those foppish boys from Rome barely off his mother’s tit, mark you – had the audacity to tell me to pull my men in. I had to bite into my lip to stop myself flattening the posh little prick with my staff.’
‘Should have done it,’ the other man, another senior centurion he recognised, grinned. ‘You’d have done the army a favour. Probably his mother too.’
Taking a deep breath, Varus nodded to the guards, hoping they would not intercept a man in the uniform of a senior officer, and made for the doorway. The two legionaries saluted him respectfully, but one cleared his throat noisily to warn the occupants of Varus’ approach. As the cavalry commander ducked into the tent’s entrance, the two centurions turned and gave weary salutes.
‘Evening you two. Pullo, isn’t it? And… Vorenus? I might suggest a little less vocality on the subject of men who could legitimately have you broken in the ranks, eh? Just for the sake of decorum?’
Pullo gave him the sort of look he would have expected if he’d asked the man to strip naked and stand on his head.
‘Respectfully, sir, why?’
‘Exactly because of that: respect.’
Pullo snorted. ‘That’s a bit rich, sir.’
‘I beg your pardon.’
‘I remember tell of you putting old Longinus in his place years back. And Crassus. And others. You’ve a bit of a reputation for speaking your mind, sir.’
Varus blinked and chuckled sheepishly. ‘Still, where your men might hear…’
Pullo stalked over to the door and looked around at the two men on guard. ‘Flavius?’
‘Sir?’
‘You remember that tribune with the jug ears we had last year? Went back to Rome after Alesia?’
‘Yessir.’
‘Speaking freely, I’d like you to sum him up in one word, soldier.’
‘That word would be ‘knob’, centurion.’
Pullo grinned. ‘Thank you Flavius. You can skip latrine detail tomorrow.’ He turned back to Varus. ‘The men already have their own opinions, sir, and we all know what they are. It doesn’t matter how hard you polish a turd, it still smells like a turd, and every man knows that from the centurionate to the new recruit.’
Again, Varus could only chuckle. ‘Very well. Then I’ll leave you to your defamation.’
‘Care to defame someone with us, sir? I happen to have acquired this fine large amphora in a small wager involving a cavalry trooper and an eating knife.’
Varus gave him a black look, and Pullo rallied well. ‘Oh come on, sir. We know your horse boys have their place, and they’ve done you proud for years, but few of them could stand in the shield wall and not shit himself.’
Varus’ eyes turned flinty and he cast a withering look at the centurion. ‘I know there’s a strained rivalry between my troopers and your legionaries, centurion, but I don’t expect to hear such blinkered, idiotic sentiments from an officer who should know better.’
Pullo shrugged, poured a cup of wine and proffered it to Varus. ‘Peace offering? No offence meant.’
Varus sighed and took the cup. ‘Fair enough. For the record, I’ve spent my fair share of time stood up to the knees in shit and blood, facing down the howling horde.’
‘I know that, sir. Your courage was never in doubt. Come on, let’s forget about rivalries and find someone to pull to pieces that we both hate. Have you seen Plancus recently?’
* * * * *
Varus straightened from lacing his boot and sat for a moment until the spots disappeared from his vision and the camelopard that was running around inside his head, churning his brains to mush, stopped for a rest. Gripping the chair back for support, he rose and stood for a moment, trying to marshal his thoughts, the uppermost of which involved the apparently endless capacity for wine of the centurionate. By the time he’d left Pullo’s tent last night, he felt as though he’d been physically abused. It felt like a night in Fronto’s tent used to feel.
Flashes of memory hit him, of that bedraggled trudge through the rain back to his own quarters. He’d been oblivious at the time, but now it seemed obvious that one of the legionaries on duty outside the centurion’s tent had shadowed him all the way through the camp, making sure he made it back intact. And while he had been about as compos mentis as a cabbage by the time he struggled out of the tent, Pullo and Vorenus had been going strong, louder than before and even less guarded in their comments, but completely in control of their bodies and minds, if not their mouths.
Varus realised that he’d actually relaxed last night in a manner that he’d not achieved in months. But now, when the courier from the general was standing outside waiting to escort him, and his head was hammering like the anvils of the legion workshops, he considered last night’s adventure to be a rather poor bit of decision making. He was also under absolutely no illusion that the centurions from the Eleventh were not already up, bathed, shaved, armoured and busy shouting at their men, dressing them in neat lines. Even thinking about a centurion shouting sent a lance of pain into the matter behind his left eye. He could vaguely hear the sounds of construction muffled by his tent leather. Or was that just in his head?