‘Well now, Centurion, do come in. Can I offer you a cup of wine?’
If Tribune Sigilis was surprised by Marcus’s presence at the door of his quarter he managed to hide it well enough, pulling up a chair for his fellow Roman and waiting while the other man shrugged off his cloak and sat down. Waving away the offer of a drink with a smile, noting that the bottle was stoppered and that Sigilis was drinking nothing stronger than water, Marcus took a moment to compose himself before speaking.
‘Thank you for your time, Tribune-’
The younger man raised a hand, shaking his head in gentle rebuke.
‘No. I won’t sit here and allow you to show deference to me when we both know that you’re easily as wellborn as I am. On top of which, you’re the one with the scars and experience I so badly need if I am to make a success of this way of life. When we have the privacy necessary for you to drop your mask, I would be honoured if you would use my first name.’ He gave the centurion an appraising stare. ‘In truth I’d long since decided that you and I would never have this discussion.’
Marcus nodded.
‘And in truth, Lucius, so had I. When you told me about your father’s investigations into my family’s downfall I quickly decided not to pursue the matter. I decided that I would be wiser to be content with the life I have here, and to cherish and protect my family, than to go hunting shadows and risk losing everything.’
Sigilis raised an eyebrow.
‘So I had assumed, when we marched all the way from the Ravenstone valley to this frozen extremity of the empire without exchanging a word on the subject. So what changed your mind?’
Marcus smiled wryly at the question.
‘Not so much what, as who. My wife is adamant on the subject, despite knowing the risks involved for all of us. You see. .’ He shook his head, as if in disbelief at what he was about to say. ‘As I think I told you, my father’s ghost haunts my dreams. He pursues me through my sleeping hours, sometimes accompanied by my family, sometimes alone. Last night I dreamt about a battlefield scattered with bloodied corpses and stinking of blood and faeces. .’ He gave Sigilis a knowing look which the tribune answered with a minute nod. ‘And there, in the corner of my eye, I found him standing waiting for me. His toga was rent and bloodied, and the nails had been torn from his fingers. He raised them for me to see, and told me that this was the torture to which he had been subjected before he was killed, in the expectation that he would betray my hiding place.’
He sighed and put a hand over his eyes, and Sigilis reached for the wine bottle, filling a cup and passing it over.
‘Thank you. In every dream he tells me that I have to seek revenge for their murder, and that I can only exact this vengeance by returning to Rome. But the worst dreams are the ones where my younger brother appears beside him, always silent, always staring at me without expression.’ He took a mouthful of the wine. ‘Felicia tells me that I must resolve this internal conflict if I am to stay sane, and that she fears I will turn to the bottle or kill myself to find peace. She also believes that my customary loss of any sense of self-preservation in battle is rooted in the same problem.’
Sigilis frowned.
‘Your wife does not believe that this is your father’s ghost?’
Marcus smiled, shaking his head.
‘My wife is the most rational person I have ever known. Not many women could have dealt with the ordeal she was put through last year, kidnapped by an imperial assassin who was using her as bait to lure me in for the kill. He lowered his guard for a single moment and she stuck a knife through his tongue in defence of our unborn child. She never seems to have lost a moment’s sleep over the matter either. But it makes no difference whether my father speaks to me from the underworld or simply from here,’ — he tapped the back of his head — ‘I must do as he bids, and find the men who murdered my family. Only when they are cold in the ground will I find the peace I crave.’ He raised his gaze to stare levelly at the tribune. ‘So tell me if you will, Lucius, and in as much detail as you can muster, what it was that this investigator told your father and his colleagues about my father’s death.’
Sigilis stirred in his seat, reaching for a cup and filling it with wine.
‘There was much in what he told us that you will find troubling, but one name was woven through the whole sorry story. It seems that there is a group of men who do the emperor’s bidding, or perhaps more accurately that of the man who stands behind his throne, the Praetorian Prefect Perennis. When men without conscience or compunction are needed, these men step forward without regard to the consequences of their actions. They carry out the dirty jobs that require the spilling of innocent blood in pursuit of imperial aims, and if a noble family vanishes from the city, as if they have been expunged from life itself, they are usually at the heart of the matter. He named them, not as individuals but by their collective name, a title that sent a shiver of fear through the men listening in my father’s house that night. He called them “The Emperor’s Knives”.’
‘Atten-shun!’
The gathered officers stiffened their bodies as the two legati entered the room, obeying the legion first spear’s barked command without hesitation.
‘He’s a fearsome old bastard, that Secundus.’
Scaurus nodded fractionally in recognition of Julius’s muttered comment, replying in equally muted terms.
‘Yes, he’s from the old school, a throwback to the days of the republic.’
The veteran senior centurion was apparently well known for his evil temper when his instructions were not followed instantly and to the letter, and wasn’t above publicly berating an errant tribune in the most incendiary of terms without any apparent regard for social status. Cattanius had shared a story with the two men while they had been waiting for the command conference to begin, the payoff to which had been his recounting of the man’s furious beasting of an errant junior tribune for some mistake or other only the previous day. He had looked around to make sure they weren’t overheard before continuing with his recounting of the centurion’s words.
‘All Secundus said was this: “The Thirteenth Legion is the best fucking legion in the empire, young sir. We’re the descendants of the men the Divine Julius Caesar used to conquer the world, and ever since those famous days the Thirteenth has been led by real soldiers, from the legatus down. And if you can’t manage to behave like a real soldier then you, young sir, can fuck right off!” I don’t expect his daddy warned the young man in question to expect treatment like that when he signed the boy up!’
Under the veteran centurion’s gimlet eye the officers stood to attention while the two legati took their places by the map table. Albinus looked about him with a slightly bemused smile, while his colleague Gaius Pescennius Niger’s expression was altogether more dour.
‘Very well, gentlemen, relax, and gather round the map if you will.’
The assembled officers obeyed Niger’s command, clustering round the meticulously constructed map table while he waited for them to settle into place. Julius looked down at the plaster replica of the landscape across which the campaign against the Sarmatae would be fought.
‘Lend me your vine stick will you please, First Spear?’
Secundus surrendered his badge of office to his legatus, the look on his face indicating his displeasure at having to allow his commanding officer to make free with his most treasured possession. Oblivious to the centurion’s reproving stare, Niger looked around the circle of men with the stick held up until he was sure he had every man’s full attention.