‘You have no idea how dispiriting it is to discover that a man who initially seemed so reasonable is just another bastard. Although you’re not just a bastard, are you Balodi, you’re a clever, scheming, ruthless, murdering bastard, I’ll give you that. Once your brother was dead you knew that Inarmaz would contest with you for the throne, so you took the opportunity we offered and convinced us to do most of your dirty work for you.’
The Sarmatae nodded.
‘Indeed. Although in truth all I really expected from your man Corvus was a distraction, and enough time to reach my men and strike while Inarmaz’s attention was elsewhere, instead of which he did most of the job for me. And of course disposing of my nephew was child’s play. He was such a trusting fool, as, it appears, was your colleague Belletor. Did I do you a favour in making him the first of our collection of Roman heads? I’ll warn you, my brother in arms, Purta here, has designs to put all of your heads alongside his.’
Leontius stepped closer, raising a hand to point at the fort again.
‘It seems there’s little left to be said then. Here’s a small demonstration of what awaits you if you’re rash enough to cross this bridge in hopes of smashing your way into Dacia.’
He waved a hand in the air, and a flame flared brightly in the late winter afternoon’s gloom on the wall behind him, a torch wielded by one of the hard-faced centurions supervising the bolt-thrower crews. After a moment’s silence the light brightened as it found the fuel placed around the cross’s base in preparation for the demonstration. Within a few heartbeats the cross was ablaze, and the previously semi-conscious figure nailed to it was screaming at the top of his voice as the fire seared his flesh. While the expressionless Sarmatae leaders watched, he writhed horribly for a moment before sagging motionless down into the flames, lost in their twisting brilliance. The tribune turned back to them without emotion.
‘Crude, I know, but to the point. He purported to serve the empire but was clearly only waiting for the right moment to savage his new master’s hand. And so he pays the price by dying in screaming agony. As will you all, when you fail in this doomed attempt to break Rome’s hold over Dacia. It isn’t too late to turn away and forswear this rash assault on our borders.’
Purta smiled and shook his head.
‘I think not, Roman. And since we’re delivering public justice. .’
He made a signal to the men behind him, who wrestled forward a struggling figure and forced him to his knees before the Sarmatae king, who raised a long knife for the Romans to see and put his hand in the captive’s hair to pull his head back. His bodyguard set their shields firmly in anticipation of any attempt to rescue the prisoner.
‘A head for a head, although sadly I don’t have the time to make this infiltrator suffer the way you thoughtfully arranged for our brother to spend his last moments screaming in agony.’ He looked up at the Romans, smiling at their lack of recognition. ‘You don’t know him, do you? Perhaps this will help.’
He sheathed the knife, reaching into a pocket and pulling out something that glinted in the winter afternoon’s thin light, throwing it across the bridge to land at the tribunes’ feet. Scaurus reached down and picked up the trinket, a gold ring with a large garnet set in its claws. He raised it for Leontius to see.
‘So now we know just how secret the legatis’ information was. This ring was the means by which he enabled his messengers to prove they came from him, and not from some cat’s paw.’
Purta laughed at his expression.
‘I see you recognise the ring. We’ve been using it to feed whatever information we want your leaders to have across the border for almost a year now, while this poor fool sweated and strained under my torturer’s attentions and told us absolutely everything he knew. You wouldn’t believe a man could have his limbs broken so many times without simply going insane.’
Marcus stared hard across the bridge, and realised that the prisoner’s arms and legs were obscenely twisted, his fingers pointing in different directions. Purta shrugged, drawing the knife from his belt again.
‘All good things must come to an end, I suppose.’
He cut the helpless spy’s throat, dropping his writhing body onto the bridge’s timbers with a dismissive shove.
‘That’s just a start, of course. We’ll take revenge for that slow death a thousand times over, once your ditch is filled and your walls broken. If I were you I would pray to every god you hold dear to die in battle, for I will be offering a rich reward from the gold brought to our cause by Balodi for any man who captures any of you men in a fit state to receive the attentions of my flaying knives. Roman gold for a Roman officer’s skin. . I suppose it’s only fitting.’
Once he was happy that his men were fed and bedded down, and with Quintus given explicit instructions to make sure that they stayed in their tents and were given no chance to wander off in search of alcohol, Marcus walked the short distance across the fort and into the hospital. The scene inside the building was much as he had come to expect, with the least seriously wounded soldiers sitting in small groups as they waited for the medical staff to work through the more seriously hurt men. Their wounds were superficial for the most part, in need only of stitching by the bandage carriers who were working their way through them with tired eyes and numb fingers, although to Marcus more than a few of them would be permanently disfigured by deep cuts to their faces. Some of them were sleeping, and one man, a long cut through one eyebrow and down his cheek already stitched, was whimpering in his sleep much to the quiet amusement of his comrades.
‘He always does it after a fight, sir, like an old dog dreaming about running about an’ barking, only he’s killing barbarians rather than chasing sheep.’
Marcus smiled sadly and went in search of his wife, but before he found her a familiar voice called him from a side room whose floor was given over to men with more serious wounds.
‘Centurion!’
He turned to find Scarface beckoning him with a respectful salute, and entered the room to find half a dozen men lying on straw mattresses, most with their eyes closed against their pain. One of them, his chest wrapped in bandages, was groaning quietly to himself but showing no other sign of life other than fast, shallow breathing, his skin pale and waxy in the lamplight. Scarface’s friend Sanga was wide awake though, and seemed animated enough despite his obvious discomfort. He smiled wanly up at Marcus and went to raise his arm in salute, his eyes widening at the involuntary movement’s effect on his wound.
‘Relax, Sanga. Have you been seen by the doctor?’
Scarface answered for his friend, who rolled his eyes before closing them and leaving his comrade to it.
‘Yes, Centurion. She took a look at him and said he’d live. I had a look in through the door of her room earlier and she was up to her elbows in blood and swearing like a six-badge centurion, so I made a quick retreat before she saw me.’
‘No you didn’t, soldier. I was just too busy trying to stop a man bleeding to death to turn my ire on you rather than his wound.’
Felicia walked into the room with eyes that were glazed with weariness, looking about her and weighing up the condition of the men waiting for treatment while a pair of orderlies waited behind her.
‘That one, please.’ She pointed to the man next to Sanga who was holding a thick wad of linen to a long gash in his thigh. ‘And make sure the table’s washed down before you put him on it.’ She leant over the groaning man and shook her head. ‘Then you can put this poor man in the quiet room. I think he’s beyond helping, so we might as well allow him to pass in peace. And you, Centurion, can come with me.’
She led him down the corridor to a tiny office in which Annia was dozing with little Appius cradled in her lap, gurgling quietly.
‘Thank the gods for a docile baby. Here. .’ She took the infant from her assistant and handed him to Marcus. ‘Have you come for a report for your Tribune?’