‘Which was what?’
Marcus spoke up.
‘Which was to keep our mouths shut and allow the boy to tell us his story in his own time.’
Scaurus sighed.
‘I’ve always known in my heart there was a reason why soldiers aren’t allowed to marry. It seems we break some rules at our peril.’
Julius raised an eyebrow.
‘With all due respect, Tribune, the lady and I aren’t married.’
Scaurus laughed hollowly.
‘From what I’m hearing it sounds as if you might as well be. No matter, tell me what it was that the boy had to tell you.’
Julius and Marcus looked at each other, and after a moment’s pause Marcus spoke.
‘The boy seems to have witnessed the massacre of his entire village. They were prosperous enough from the little he could tell us about the place, and their status as retired soldiers made the tribes wary of raiding them, knowing that the Thirteenth Gemina would come down on them like a collapsing bathhouse if they took any liberties with the legion’s veterans. The army even supported them by buying food from them on a regular basis, it seems, because the boy talked about a soldier with a crest like ours that he saw several times. And then one night it was all torn apart by armed men who ripped through the place in minutes, killed all of the men whether they fought to defend their homes or not, raped the women and butchered their animals for food. Mus saw his father and brothers die, and he gave a description of his father’s murderer that sounds quite a lot like our new friend Prefect Gerwulf. And-’
‘It was him.’ The soldiers turned to face the boy, almost forgotten in the corner. ‘That is the man who killed my father.’
He fell silent again, his face streaked with fresh tears.
‘The worst of it is that the boy told us his mother and sisters were being raped when he ran for his life. And then he told us how old the girls were.’
‘And?’
‘The youngest of them was seven, the oldest thirteen.’
The tribune turned away with a troubled expression, staring at the boy for a moment.
‘We have no proof, and only the word of a nine-year-old child against that of a valuable ally of the empire, a man of proven loyalty and in command of over two thousand battle-hardened troops. If, no, when Gerwulf goes to Belletor with this matter, my colleague will simply tell me to hand the boy over and be done with it, and any attempt to argue with him will be all the excuse he’s been waiting for, doubly so since I’ve had to expose him as the incompetent he is to mount an effective defence of the mines.’
He stared up at the tent’s roof with a thoughtful expression.
‘So perhaps the time has come for me to stop dancing to the tune that was set out by the First Minervia’s legatus, and to start treading on Domitius Belletor’s toes.’
5
‘What baffles me is how a hundred bored soldiers can keep control of that many tribesmen. Surely if they rushed their guards there’d be no way a single century could stop them?’
By the time darkness had fallen across the valley a fine drizzle was drifting across the hills in curtains that found their way inside the soldiers’ armour and trickled down necks and backs with dispiriting ease. Dubnus was duty centurion, and since the Fifth Century had the duty of standing guard on the Sarmatae prisoners, Marcus had joined him as he made his rounds of the sentry positions. His friend grunted at the question, shrugging and then shivering in disgust as the gesture allowed another line of cold rainwater to run down his back.
‘They’re damp, cold and hungry, and every one of them looks at the guards’ spears and imagines ending his life here to no purpose. Besides, there are easily twice their number of troops within two hundred paces. They’ll offer us nothing worse than dirty looks, because any man that shows a sign of having any spirit left in him will be pulled out for a swift beating. Just look at them.’
They paused at the side of the four-foot-deep ditch which had been dug around the prisoners’ enclosure, and whose bottom had already collected enough water to present a mirror for the blazing torches that burned every twenty paces. On the other side of the entrenchment the captured Sarmatae warriors were huddled into a space carefully laid out to be barely large enough to accommodate their numbers. Clustered around a few braziers whose contents glowed red through the sea of bodies, they were clearly far more concerned with keeping warm than with any attempt to escape. Dubnus shook his head in disgust.
‘They’ll be freezing cold after a day doing nothing in the open at this time of year, and there are only enough fires to keep them all warm if they’re constantly changing places to give everyone a turn in the heat, which of course never happens. And since they’re fed just enough to keep them quiet, some of them inevitably go hungry, which divides them against each other. Even if they did have the stones to have a crack at the guards, they’d still have to climb down into that. .’ He pointed down into the trench that had been dug to contain the prisoners. ‘And then they’d have to hoist themselves up on this side straight into the shields and spears of the guards. Not to mention the fact that half of them would have broken ankles from the leg-breaker Julius had cut into the floor of the ditch. No, we’re safe enough from. .’
Dubnus paused, having realised that an armoured figure was approaching them down the entrenchment’s edge. Having apparently realised that his centurion was present, Marcus’s chosen man strode up to the officers with a determined look on his face, stamping to attention in front of the two men and saluting Marcus with his usual punctilious precision.
‘Centurion Corvus, sir!’
Marcus returned the salute with as much gusto as he could muster.
‘Stand easy, Chosen Man Quintus, I trust we find all well with you?’
Quintus nodded quickly.
‘Yes, sir, all’s well here. The prisoners are all behaving themselves quietly enough, although we did have one small problem earlier. Soon enough dealt with though.’
He grinned at the two centurions, raising his fist and kissing the knuckles with a hard grin. For the sake of politeness, and in the hope of building some better relationship with the man by dint of finding something for which he might offer his deputy some praise, Marcus decided to show some interest.
‘A problem, Chosen? What sort of problem?’
Quintus launched into his explanation, still stood rigidly to attention.
‘One of the prisoners approached a guard and asked to see the officer he heard had been over the turf wall and into the barbarian camp. Said he was the king’s brother or some such nonsense. I gave him a clout and sent him packing, the cheeky bastard.’
Dubnus raised a sceptical eyebrow.
‘And how would he have heard about the centurion’s little adventure, eh Quintus, unless your lads have been fraternising with the prisoners? Has Morban been up to his old tricks with them perhaps, sniffing for gold?’
The chosen man shook his head indignantly, his expression apparently genuinely scandalised.
‘Certainly not, Centurion! You know how it is though, the men do talk, and if a prisoner can speak Latin then he’s likely to overhear what-’
Marcus snapped awake, bending to look into Quintus’s face with an expression that widened the chosen man’s eyes in alarm.
‘Latin? He spoke to you in Latin?’
Quintus nodded slowly, his smug expression melting fast under the heat of his centurion’s intense scrutiny.
‘Yes, sir, as well as you or I. All the same, I wasn’t going to have him-’
Marcus’s suspicion became incredulous anger in a heartbeat.
‘Get your arse back into that enclosure and find him, Chosen Man Quintus! And if you don’t find him alive then don’t bother coming out again! Move!’
Quintus turned and fled, while a thoroughly incensed Marcus looked about him at the men guarding the prisoners, searching for any target on which to vent his spleen. Dubnus laughed softly at him, drawing his attention away from a pair of soldiers who were, he guessed, only barely holding onto their self-control.