The first spear nodded, and Scaurus switched his gaze to Cotta.
‘You, Centurion, I need to find out which of the legion’s centurions can be trusted when the going turns nasty. I want a list, no more than a week from now, of who you believe we can trust to keep their nerve when the arrows start flying. And who we can trust, full stop. I’ve no intention of taking any of Domitius Dexter’s men with me, if I can avoid it.’
Cotta smiled back at him.
‘As you wish, Legatus. Although First Spear Quintinus isn’t going to like you picking and choosing from his officers.’
The legatus shrugged.
‘First Spear Quintinus isn’t going to have any choice in the matter. Dubnus …’
The hulking centurion stiffened in his seat.
‘Legatus.’
‘You, Centurion, I need for the sheer brute force possessed by your axe men. The Tenth Century will be the muscle power that drives our most effective weapons. And you, Qadir …’
‘Legatus?’
Where Dubnus’s voice was a bass growl, the Hamian’s lightly accented response was smooth, almost cultured.
‘You, and your archers, will take that muscle power and deliver it to the places where it will have the maximum impact.’
Qadir inclined his head in respectful acknowledgement.
‘Avidus.’
The African engineer nodded briskly.
‘You and your men are our experts at making things, or at least that was the story you told me when I was debating whether to agree to Julius’s brazen plan to bribe you and your century out of the transit barracks at Rome.’
He passed the centurion a wooden writing tablet, which Avidus opened and perused, his eyebrows rising at the list’s contents.
‘I need you to get me all of these items. Make them, or have them made in the city’s workshops, borrow them or steal them, I care little as long as they’re ready on time.’
‘In a week, Legatus?’
‘In a week, Centurion.’
The pioneer officer pursed his lips.
‘Ox hides by the thousand, linen by the mile, iron – a lot of iron – enough wood to build a battleship. It won’t be cheap, sir, and getting it done that quickly will just make the merchants and smiths greedier than they usually are.’
Scaurus pointed a hand at the chest that occupied one corner of his office, the reason why the Tungrians mounted a heavy guard around and inside the building both night and day.
‘I know. You’ll have all the gold you need.’
Avidus nodded and turned his attention back to the tablet, his mind clearly already preoccupied with how to meet his legatus’s requirements.
‘Tribune Corvus.’
Marcus looked up.
‘Legatus.’
‘You, Tribune, have two men with key roles to play, and I have a particular task in mind for you as well. This is what I need …’
Marcus rode his horse down the hill into Seleucia the next morning at the head of a long train of empty carts, looking out across the port at the praetorian warships that had been beached on the inner harbour’s shingle. Half a dozen remained afloat within the protection of the outer harbour’s thick walls, moored stem to stern along the northern mole. The morning guard directed him to the better of the port’s official guest houses so, ordering the carts to wait for him, and tethering the horse under their watchful eye, he walked the last few hundred paces to find the fleet’s procurator taking the morning air, leaning back in a wooden chair with the look of a man at his ease. The expression fled Ravilla’s face the instant he saw the younger man approaching.
‘I’ve been waiting for you to come back down that hill, Tribune. Not with any keen sense of anticipation, mind you.’
Marcus inclined his head in recognition of the naval officer’s irritation, having fully expected his appearance to confirm the man’s worst fears. Scaurus had warned him what to expect before he’d climbed into the saddle for the short ride to the port earlier that morning: ‘He’s not going to like it, Tribune. You’ll have to find a way to make it clear to him what’s going to happen if he doesn’t cooperate.’
He bowed respectfully.
‘I completely understand, Procurator. The Legatus asked me to convey to you his regret at having to make the request …’
‘But unfortunately he has no choice in the matter?’
‘Something very much like that, yes sir.’
The procurator scratched at his beard, shaking his head unhappily as he accepted the scroll that Marcus had produced from his belt, opening it to read Scaurus’s orders.
‘So he proposes to take my marines away with him into Parthia, where he will almost certainly get them all killed? I suppose I ought to be grateful he’s not ordering me to bring him a few cohorts of sailors as well?’
The younger man shook his head.
‘In the years I’ve known him it’s been my observation that while Legatus Scaurus can at times be pragmatic to the point of ruthlessness, I’ve never found him to be a sadist. And arming your crews would be sadism of the lowest type, given the enemy we’re marching to face. He believes that your marines will suffice.’
The procurator glowered at him in silence for a moment.
‘And what’s he going to do if I refuse, eh? March his legion down here and drag my men away? Tell me that, Tribune. What’s he going to do if I send you away with the hard word?’
‘Nothing, sir. But then it’s not what the legatus will do that should be troubling you.’
Ravilla looked at him, seeing the shadow of pain cross his face.
‘I was wondering why he sent you, rather than coming down here in person. I’d put it down to his not wanting to have to face me while he stripped my fleet of its men, but that’s not the reason, is it?’
Marcus shook his head impassively.
‘No, Procurator.’
‘Then why? Why you, and not Rutilius Scaurus in person.’
‘Because the legatus has no one to lose, sir. Whereas I do.’
Ravilla nodded slowly.
‘Wife? Children? Parents?’
‘My wife and child. They assure my complete commitment to the emperor’s cause, and my eventual return to Rome. And yourself, Prefect? Do you have family in the capital?’
The prefect looked back at him for a moment before replying.
‘I have children, and a wife I still love. My father lives with my family, to keep them from harm.’
‘Could your father fight off a dozen hardened killers? Imperial justice takes as violent a form these days as it did towards the end of the civil war, Prefect. Men of substance are torn from their families and murdered on the slightest pretext, their estates and property confiscated. All the men behind the throne need is a reason to come after you …’
‘And?’
‘Prefect, my legatus is an honourable man who has been put into a corner, and under such circumstances all he knows how to do is fight. If you fail to assist him then you will leave him no alternative but to report your non-compliance with the valid and rightful order of a superior officer. As a consequence you are likely to find yourself on the wrong end of imperial justice, I’d imagine, with all that implies. But then your death wouldn’t really be the worst of your problems, I’d imagine.’
First Spear Quintinus led the Third Gallic onto the parade ground the next morning with the air of a man compelled to hand his daughter over in marriage to a bridegroom with a known taste for domestic violence. The soldiers were quiet for the most part, their half-day off having for the most part been spent in pursuit of alcohol and Antioch’s notoriously large population of whores.
‘Fucking look at them, every one of them hanging from his chinstrap like the shithouse dogs they are!’
Saratos grinned at his comrade’s disgusted opinion.
‘Not every day Legatus tell soldier he part of proud tradition that go back to blessed Julius. Is funny.’
Sanga shook his head.