‘And here’s another one of your ships. I’d better go and get that gold moving, before Fulvius Sorex starts getting nervous at the thought of your soldiers dribbling on his precious cargo. He already looks about as twitchy as a stores officer presented with a century of new recruits to equip.’
The Tungrian Fifth Century disembarked from their transport with the look of men who were profoundly relieved to have their boots back on solid ground for good after a week spent hugging the coast of Germania, Gaul amp; Britannia. Several men bent wearily to kiss the quay’s wooden planks, while others touched amulets or simply muttered prayers of thanks for their safe delivery to land. Their chosen man Quintus, responsible for the century when Marcus was elsewhere, busied his soldiers with the routine of parading in their usual marching formation alongside the cohort’s other centuries, inspecting each man’s equipment to ensure that none of them had managed to leave anything aboard the transport in their relief at reaching dry land. Discovering that one of the younger soldiers had managed to mislay both his dagger and the iron butt-spike from one of his spears, his voice was once again raised in a tirade of abuse as the mortified soldier scrambled back up the gangplank and onto the ship in the forlorn hope of recovering his equipment from the acquisitive hands of the transport’s crew. The century’s standard bearer, a stocky man whose lined and weather-beaten face gave him the look of a man comfortably past the age of retirement from imperial service, chuckled happily and muttered an aside to one of the men behind him.
‘There’s another, which makes four. One more and I win the wager.’
The veteran to whom he was speaking shook his head with a grin, looking down the quay at the figure walking towards them.
‘I doubt it, Morban old mate. I’d say you’re out of time …’
The standard bearer shook his head in disgust, saluting tiredly as his centurion stopped a few paces away and received Quintus’s salute, formally assuming command of the Fifth once more.
‘Oh yes, here he comes now, looking as fresh as any man that’s enjoyed a good night’s sleep. Bloody typical, we get to lurch across the sea in that leaky puke bucket while the favoured few are entertained on a racing hound of a warship. They were probably here hours ago, with time for a few beakers of wine while they waited for us to roll into harbour …’
Marcus ignored his standard bearer’s usual monologue of discontent for a moment, looking up and down the ranks of his century with an eye on his men’s physical state after the best part of a week afloat and finding their faces on the whole considerably more cheerful than he would have expected. Turning back to the grumbling veteran he put out a hand for the century’s standard, smiling grimly at the reluctance with which Morban handed it over.
‘It seems that the sea air has disagreed with more than your temper, eh Standard Bearer?’
Frowning in apparent non-comprehension, the burly soldier looked up at his officer questioningly.
‘Centurion?’
Marcus lowered the standard until its metal laurel-wreath-encircled hand was inches from Morban’s nose.
‘Unless my eyes deceive me, Standard Bearer, this once faultless symbol of our century’s pride is showing signs of rusting. I suggest that you improve its appearance considerably before we parade again, or my disappointment will be both vocal and prolonged.’
He turned back to the ranks of soldiers, raising his voice to be heard.
‘How many of you were sick during the voyage, I wonder? One hand in the air if you managed to avoid vomiting the whole way from Germania.’
Thirty or so hands went up, and the young centurion turned back to Morban with a smile.
‘And you were giving odds on how many men being sick, Morban? Forty?’
A voice sounded from the front rank, the gravelly rasp of a soldier called Sanga who was one of the century’s stalwarts.
‘It was forty-five, Centurion.’
‘I see. Oh dear …’ Marcus made a show of reaching for his writing tablet and checking the numbers inscribed upon it before speaking again. ‘So if there are sixty-eight men in the century, of whom nearly half managed to hold on to the contents of their stomachs …’ Shaking his head in mock pity, Marcus turned back to Morban. ‘You’ve a long memory when it comes to odds, haven’t you, Standard Bearer? Doubtless you recalled the voyage over to Germania last year, and how we were tossed mercilessly by waves the whole way there. As I recall it, hardly any of us survived without throwing up on that voyage, myself included. Unlike the one we’ve just completed, with hardly a swell to bother us. So, what odds were you offering?’
‘One as per man under or over the target, Centurion.’
Marcus smiled again at Sanga’s confirmation of what he had suspected.
‘I see. A rusty standard and a purse made considerably lighter than you might have wished. Isn’t life just a valley of tears some days?’ He leaned to speak quietly into Morban’s ear, his lowered voice hard in tone. ‘Polish that standard, Morban, polish it to within an inch of its life. Make it shine as if it were solid gold fresh from the jeweller’s workbench, or you’ll find yourself watching another man carrying it, and adopting your status as an immune while you forge a new and exciting career in waste disposal. Latrine detail beckons you, Standard Bearer, if I don’t find that proud symbol of my century’s pride in the condition I expect at my next inspection.’
He turned back to the troops, looking up and down their line as his brother officers and their chosen men chivvied their soldiers into order. Julius’s trumpeter blew the signal for the cohort to come to attention, the call promptly repeated by each century’s signaller, and Tribune Scaurus walked out in front of his men with a slow, deliberate gait, stopping a dozen paces from their ranks and looking up and down the long line of weary faces. The soldier who had been sent to search for his equipment bolted back down the gangplank with a look of terror at the scowl on Quintus’s face, throwing himself into the century’s formation just as the tribune drew breath to address them. Tribune Sorex and Camp Prefect Castus stood off to one side, and Marcus noticed a group of four men gathered behind them, each of them wearing a black cloak over his thick brown tunic.
‘Soldiers of the First Tungrian Cohort! In the time that it has been my honour to command you, we have performed deeds that I would have considered unlikely, perhaps even impossible, only two years ago! We have faced the tribes that inhabit the north of this province on the battlefield half a dozen times! In Germania Inferior we put paid to the schemes of the bandit leader Obduro, and in Dacia we not only took part in a successful defence of the province, but we also saved enough gold from the traitor Gerwulf to pay every soldier in a legion for three years!’
He paused, looking across his seven hundred men with a proud smile.
‘Gentlemen, at every opportunity for any man here to have folded under the pressure of the odds against us, not one of you has ever failed to stay faithful and loyal to the emperor, to your cohort and to each other!’ He paused again, looking across the silent ranks. ‘Soldiers of the First Tungrian Cohort, I salute you for it.’
Drawing himself up, he saluted to the left and right, and Marcus heard a hoarse voice whisper loudly enough for him to hear.
‘Fuck me, but this ain’t lookin’ good. What odds you offering we’re straight back into the fuckin’ shit again, eh Morban?’
A second later he heard the loud crack of brass on iron as Quintus stabbed out from behind the century with the shining brass-bound end of the six-foot-long pole that was his badge of office, snapping Sanga’s helmet forward with a sharp blow. Up and down the cohort’s length hard-bitten non-commissioned officers were administering similar summary justice to these men whose amazement at the tribune’s gesture had got the better of their discipline, and Scaurus regarded them with a knowing smile on his face.