‘And why didn’t he send one of his procurators to make the arrest?’
‘Because, you idiot, it’s more than likely that the soldiers wouldn’t have recognised the man’s authority.’
The other man laughed bitterly.
‘So it’s better for us to have our authority flouted than them?’
The group’s leader stopped walking, turning to his subordinate with a raised finger.
‘Look, as far as I’m concerned-’
A blare of trumpets interrupted him, as the gates of the fortress swung open and, after a moment’s pause, the head of a marching column of men emerged onto the road.
‘We’re too late!’
The senior lictor shook his head angrily.
‘No we’re bloody not. All that’s happened is that this Scaurus has got the shit scared out of him and decided to make a run for it with his men. Come on!’
Leading his reluctant comrade towards the barrack, he ignored the shower of catcalls that rained down on them as the column’s first centuries marched past. Squeezing in through the gateway, he looked around for a moment before his eyes alighted on a group of figures, the junior man’s lips moving as he counted the men still waiting to join the line of march.
‘I thought he was only allowed to take half the legion.’
‘He is only allowed to take half the bloody legion.’
The two men strode across the parade ground under the eyes of thousands of men, stopping a few paces from their intended target as Scaurus turned around and smiled at them.
‘Ah, gentlemen. You both look somewhat hot and bothered, but that’s what happens when you go rushing around in a full-weight toga carrying a big bundle of rods and an axe, I suppose. Can I ask someone to get you a cup of water?’
Shaking his head, the chief lictor drew himself up, drawing a breath ready to pronounce the legatus’s arrest, only to find himself silenced by a raised hand.
‘Before you say whatever it is that you’ve come to say, I suggest that you save yourself some wasted breath by reading this.’
He passed the man a scroll, which he unrolled and started to read.
‘Those are my orders, which direct me to take command of the legion and proceed across the frontier into Osrhoene at my earliest opportunity. Once I’ve paid my respects to King Abgar, I am to head straight for Nisibis, defeating any Parthian forces I meet on the way, overcome any siege of the fortress, and then return to the province to await further orders. Note the seal, by the way. It’s not every day that you’ll see the imperial seal on a document. The last time the governor saw it was when I delivered him the paper telling him that he’d been officially relieved of his duties.’
He smiled at the two men again as they looked at him aghast.
‘No, I suspected that hadn’t been communicated very widely. Anyway, read on chief lictor.’
After a moment, the toga-clad official looked up from the scroll in his hands.
‘But this-’
‘Gives me absolute authority over any and all of the emperor’s subjects that I need to further my mission. Including, since you’ve doubtless been sent here to arrest me and therefore significantly impede my mission, you. So I suggest you turn around and go back to the governor with that as an explanation for the fact that you don’t have me in your custody.’
‘But my authority-’
‘Is granted to you by the emperor, is it not?’
Seeing where Scaurus’s line of argument was taking him, the chief lictor rallied his arguments.
‘Yes, but-’
‘Read the scroll again. Look for the words “obstruction of this officer will be considered grounds for immediate execution”. And consider whether you really want to obstruct me, given that I’m quite possibly marching to my own death in any case, and therefore might not be in the most tolerant frame of mind. If you take my meaning …’
‘If you’re trying to threaten me, Legatus …’
The legion commander laughed softly.
‘Trying to threaten you? Of course I’m not trying to threaten you. Consider my threat overt, consider it blatant, consider it bloody handed if you like, given the number of men my orders have killed in the last few years. But consider it quickly, because if you’re still here by the time I’ve counted to fifty, I’m going to take that small but very important sentence in my orders very, very seriously indeed.’
He turned away, and his hard-faced senior centurion stepped forward and whispered in the lictor’s ear.
‘I think what the legatus is trying to say is this …’
He drew a deep breath, narrowed his eyes and bellowed a single word.
‘RUN!’
‘Shouldn’t people be cheering? Throwing flower petals? Kissing soldiers?’
Sanga laughed at his mate with a distinctly sardonic tone, adjusting the hang of the shield on his shoulder for what seemed like the twentieth time since they had marched from the fortress.
‘This fucking shield is going to cut me in half, it’s so bloody heavy. And no, in my experience the people of any city, town, or village do not turn out to send the boys on their way with loud cheers and tits hanging out. Tits only hang out when we march into town, and that’s only because the whores they belong to are looking forward to getting paid for letting us nuzzle up to them for a while. Perhaps when we march back again …’
‘You won’t be marching back again if you don’t pick the pace up Sanga!’
The veteran turned his head with a weary sigh.
‘It’s this shield, Centurion. All the stuff the bloody armourers have glued onto it has made it heavier than a soldiers’ balls after a month in the field.’
Quintus shrugged, waving his vine stick under the soldier’s nose.
‘Deal with it. And pick the pace up before I’m forced to use this.’
Sanga squared his shoulders and lengthened his stride, muttering under his breath.
‘Before he’s forced to it …’
He fell silent, then snorted with laughter at the sight of two men arguing at the city’s Oriental gate as the Tungrians swept towards the northern wall and the road beyond it. A man in the uniform of the city watch was remonstrating with the legion’s senior centurion, waving his arms for emphasis.
‘… and my orders are to close the gate! Orders from the gov-’
Sanga grinned again as Julius stepped forward, raising his vine stick.
‘And my orders come from my legatus, so you can kiss my hairy wrinkled arsehole …’
They passed out of earshot, the two men’s voices lost in the racket of thousands of pairs of hobnailed boots crashing onto the road’s stone surface.
‘He too late. We last cohort.’
‘That’s as maybe. You know Julius never steps back from a fight.’
Sanga cranked his head round to stare back at the two men, then raised his voice to shout a question at the century’s standard bearer.
‘Hey Morban, what do you reckon the odds are on Julius taking his vine-’
After a moment’s pause he shrugged and turned back to the direction of march.
‘Never mind! Question answered.’
‘The governor told me to send you in immediately.’
Dexter’s secretary and the Phrygian prefect exchanged knowing glances, it being routine for the governor’s appointments to begin with the usual lengthy wait in the anteroom that adjoined his office. He walked past half a dozen would-be supplicants, their irritation at his taking of their turn in the queue somewhat diluted by the rage-filled shouts that leaked into the room as the office door was opened. Setting his face into a professional mask, the tribune entered, to find a pair of lictors standing in front of Dexter’s desk beside the prefect who headed the city watch. While the former looked more than a little dishevelled, the prefect had clearly been in an altercation, a substantial bruise adorning his jaw.
‘First you two incompetents fail to arrest a man who clearly intends to flout my authority for all the world to see, and then you, supposedly the controller of everything that happens in the city, can’t even stop him from marching his legion across the bridge and onto this island, into the city and out through the Oriental gate! Between the three of you you’ve managed to make the office of the governor a laughing stock!’