‘Still having problems with dear old Quintus are you then? I could hear him shouting from here, and we’ve reached that point in the day when even the hardest of chosen men are usually hanging from their chinstraps with the rest of us.’
He started walking again as the Eighth Century’s centurion passed him, shaking his head ruefully at his friend’s question.
‘What do you think, Dubnus? Mithras knows you were hard enough when you were my chosen man back in Britannia, but you were always fair enough with the men. Yes, you were as harsh with them as you had to be when they needed it, but even you knew when to let them have a little slack in their collars.’
The big man acknowledged the point with a nod, scratching at the skin beneath his heavy beard and flicking sweat from his fingers.
‘Whereas Quintus. .’
‘Never seems to give them a moment’s grace. Every tiny misdemeanour, all the usual silly little things that soldiers do, it all has him screaming at them as if they’re recruits rather than battle-hardened soldiers. Quite how Julius used to put up with it baffles me.’
His friend gave him a sideways glance.
‘Julius never had any problem with it, Marcus. He didn’t get the nickname “Latrine” without good reason, he really can be full of shit when he thinks it’s necessary. .’ He paused significantly. ‘And he thinks it’s necessary most of the time. Not that I don’t love him like a brother, but when I was his chosen man, before I was set to turning you from a snot-nosed youngster into a half-decent centurion, he regularly used to tell me I wasn’t hard enough on his men. So when I was transferred to command your old century last year he took his chance and appointed Quintus for the job.’
Marcus nodded unhappily.
‘And now I have to deal with the consequences. I can’t demote the man, not without good reason. .’
‘Which you can be sure he’ll never give you. He may be a bit of an arsehole, but to be fair he is all soldier.’
‘And I probably can’t persuade him to be any more lenient.’
Dubnus nodded again.
‘You’re more likely to persuade Morban to stop gambling. Or drinking. Or whor-’
‘Yes. So I’ll just have to put up with it, I suppose.’ Marcus sighed, looking up the column’s line at the peaks rising before them. ‘At least this incessant marching is coming to an end, if only for a few days.’
Dubnus snorted.
‘Yes, but at the price of being perched on top of a mountain with only a bunch of miners and goats for company. That, and any women who’ve made their way up here in search of either gold or marriage. Although they’re likely to be about as good looking as the goats.’
His friend smiled.
‘Morban was telling me as much only a moment ago. I’m going to drop down the column and see how Qadir’s treating my old century.’
Dubnus laughed.
‘In that case you can expect to be getting the cow’s eyes from Scarface. I hear he’s still telling anyone stupid enough to listen to him quacking on about it just how wrong it was that you didn’t take a few picked men with you when Julius put you in charge of the Fifth Century. A few picked men including him and his mate Sanga, of course.’
Marcus shrugged.
‘When Julius appointed me to lead his old century he made it clear that I wasn’t to try stripping the good men out of the Ninth. I was lucky to take my standard bearer with me, although that might be a strange new definition of the word ‘lucky’. Julius told me that there wasn’t any need to bring anyone else with me, since I was inheriting “the best bloody century in the cohort”. He also mentioned that “the First Spear wouldn’t have liked it” if I were to even consider moving men between centuries.’
Dubnus pursed his lips.
‘Yes, well I wish he’d stop invoking his predecessor’s name whenever he wants to justify something. “Don’t allow your men to slack off the march pace, the First Spear wouldn’t have liked it.”’
Marcus grinned back at him, surprised to find himself appreciating his friend’s humour given the trauma of their former senior centurion’s recent death in Germania.
‘Indeed. “Don’t drink too much of that red, the First Spear wouldn’t have liked it.”’
Dubnus smirked, miming a cup at his lips.
‘When we all know very well that Sextus Frontinius would have been guzzling it just as fast as the rest of us.’
Marcus sighed.
‘I know he’s just doing his best to keep our chins up, but all the same it’s time to let Uncle Sextus go, I’d say. Anyway, I’m going to see how the Ninth are doing.’
Marcus stepped back off the road again and waited until his former century drew level with him, falling in alongside their centurion with a nod of greeting. The men were good friends, and for a while they shared a companionable silence amid the jingle of equipment and the rattle of hobnailed boots that routinely accompanied them on the march, until the century’s standard caught his eye.
‘That thing’s clearly been polished to within an inch of its life. It must be a shock for the poor thing after so long under Morban’s version of cleaning.’
Qadir nodded solemnly, his reply couched in the cultured terms that had deceived more than one soldier into mistaking him for a soft touch.
‘My standard bearer spent a long time in Morban’s shadow, as you may recall. He seems to enjoying his moment in the sun, so to speak.’
The man in question, a lanky individual who had been Marcus’s trumpeter when he’d commanded the Ninth Century, nodded respectfully to his former centurion, and Marcus found himself smiling back at the man.
‘I’d imagine you’re still missing Morban, eh, Standard Bearer? Who else is going to keep you sharp with a never-ending flow of complaints, insults and dirty stories, or lighten your purse for you whenever it gets too heavy for comfort?’
Qadir nodded with a wry smile.
‘The Ninth Century is certainly a different place without him. Sometimes I find myself missing his continual flow of nonsense and incitement to gambling. .’
‘But the other nine-tenths of the time?’
‘Exactly. Blessed peace, and straightforward soldiering for the most part, only broken by the occasional grumbling every time one of my soldiers catches sight of you in front of the Fifth.’
He raised his voice for the last comment, making sure the men behind could hear him, and Marcus raised an eyebrow in mock surprise.
‘Really? I’d have thought even Scarface would have got over his disappointment at not having to soldier under the tender mercies of my chosen man by now.’
Marching in his usual place a few ranks behind his former and present centurions, the soldier Scarface kept a dignified silence, although he muttered a quiet aside to his mate Sanga once the two men had returned to their conversation about whatever it was that centurions discussed.
‘Cruel, that was. Very cruel.’
Sanga shrugged minutely under the weight of his spears, shield, helmet, mail shirt and pack pole, his head thrown back to suck in the cold mountain air.
‘So perhaps now you’ll be happy to let “Two Knives” take care of his own life, eh, without your having to run round after him all the time?’
Scarface’s gaze remained locked on the back of Marcus’s head.
‘Not right that we shouldn’t be allowed to go with him to the Fifth, not right at all. .’
Sanga shook his head in disgust and fell silent, concentrating on carrying half his own body weight up the road’s unremitting incline while his tent mate grumbled away to himself.