Scaurus and Julius greeted the auxiliary cohorts’ prefects at the fortress’s main gate, the legatus grinning broadly at the sight of another part of his plan coming to fruition.
‘Well now, Tribune Corvus, what have we here?’
The biggest of the three men stepped forward and clasped the legatus’s arm, slapping his shoulder in the manner of a man greeting an old friend.
‘What we have here, Legatus, are three prefects wondering how in Mithras’s name an equestrian gets to command a legion! If a bad-tempered young hothead such as yourself can make make it to the peak of our profession, there’s hope for the rest of us yet!’
They clapped his shoulders in congratulation while Julius walked out through the gates to get a closer look at his new archers.
‘You’re lucky to find us all still here you know, another six months and we’d all have been replaced by new men.’
Scaurus nodded at the speaker, the tallest of the three.
‘And I’m more grateful for that turn of fortune than you can imagine. Without some form of missile threat, my legion would have been at something of a disadvantage against the Parthians, even with the modifications that we’ve been making to weapons and tactics.’
‘Your man Corvus has been telling us all about it, but I’d like to go through the way you plan to take them on once we’re over the frontier. Without cavalry you’ll still be at a disadvantage when it comes to …’
He frowned at the legatus’s slight smile.
‘You have cavalry? How did you pull that one off? As far as I’m aware there’s no one left in command of a wing from the days when you were last here.’
‘And you’re right. But the Lightbringer has shown me one last small piece of favour. Prefect Felix?’
A man stepped forward from the group of officers behind him, and with a laugh Marcus strode forward to meet him, taking him by the hand.
‘Gaius Cornelius Felix! Of all the men I expected to have found their way here, I’d have put you close to the bottom of the list. Surely stopping a Selgovae arrow in Britannia entitled you to a position with a little less risk attached to it? Shouldn’t you be commanding an auxiliary cohort somewhere nice and quiet, rather than riding to war again?’
The cavalryman saluted him briskly.
‘Something of that nature was offered, Tribune, after my rather lengthy convalescence. I couldn’t have condemned any other man to the risk of having to ride that bad-tempered bastard Hades though.’
‘He still bites?’
Felix nodded with a weary smile.
‘Yes, And when the bastard’s not biting, he kicks like a bolt thrower. But gods below, he’s still the best horse in the empire. Give that nasty-tempered creature his head and it’s like riding one of Zeus’s thunderbolts! And my wound is fully recovered.’
He raised his arm to show a knot of scar tissue in his left armpit.
‘It healed perfectly, thanks to your wife’s expert care, so I’m as good as I ever was apart from some stiffness in the joint.’
He looked over at the waiting auxiliaries, then shook his head in disgust.
‘Hamians. You were in Hama after all, weren’t you?’
Marcus laughed.
‘One of my centurions was born and raised in the city, so it wasn’t hard for him to ride into the city and bring out civilian clothing for myself and Martos to wear. We entered Hama as merchants looking for silk at a better price than we’d have to pay in Antioch, and made contact with the prefects once you’d been and gone, to save them the embarrassment of having to lie to you. But what are you doing here? Surely the governor issued you with strict orders to apprehend the legatus?’
Felix smiled beatifically.
‘He told me not to come back without Rutilius Scaurus. So I ordered my men to load their horses with everything they would need for a march to the Euphrates and took them after the Gauls. Once I’d overtaken the legion, and it was apparent that the legatus wasn’t going to turn his men around, I decided to accompany him on his way, obviously making sure to point out to him that he’s acting in defiance of an order from his superior officer.’
He shrugged easily.
‘If the legion’s not for turning, and I’m expressly forbidden to return to Antioch without its legatus, then all I can do is tag along, and hope that he’ll eventually see sense. Of course, by the time we return to Antioch, if we survive whatever’s waiting for us over the border with Parthia, Domitius Dexter may have left his post.’
‘But nobody will be able to say that you didn’t execute your orders to the letter.’
Marcus thought for a moment.
‘Although I would have expected the governor to send further orders, when you didn’t return that evening?’
Felix nodded.
‘I expect he did. But there seems to be some sort of bandit gang operating on the road north from Antioch, deserters from a legion cavalry squadron. Two messengers have walked into the fortress already, stripped of their horses and indeed their messages, although interestingly they were allowed to keep possession of all their personal possessions and weapons. The Fourth Parthian’s legatus is expressing sympathy, but had declined to provide them with replacement mounts until these bandits have been dealt with, for their own safety. It seems he’s taking a fairly dim view of the governor’s fraudulent scheming, since he was already harbouring some fairly strong suspicions of his own. And he wasn’t the only one, it seems, since someone appears to have communicated their concerns to Rome, to judge from your swift means of transport out to the province …’
He smiled again, and Marcus shook his head with a knowing smile.
‘It was you, wasn’t it?’
Felix sniffed disdainfully.
‘No true gentleman would stoop to such a grubby scheme. I expect my father was only too happy to pass on my musings on why it was that the Gauls were so short of numbers. Although without evidence I’ve no doubt that the ghastly man will manage to slip off the hook. Come along, I’ll show you to the officers’ quarters and then to the bathhouse. You look like a man in need of a sweat and a shave. Oh, and don’t worry if you think you can hear shouting from the parade ground. First Spear Julius seems to be determined to drill some semblance of order into his new command, and he’s approaching the task in, shall we say, a somewhat brutalist manner?’
The legion marched east from Zeugma the next day, crossing the long pontoon bridge that gave the city its Greek name and using the road that ran straight for Edessa, capital of the client kingdom of Osrhoene. Moving in strict battle order, with scouts riding ahead, behind and to both flanks, the soldiers were for the most part now covering twenty miles a day without their former discomfort, but if the issue of their stamina had been resolved, it seemed that some among their ranks would never meet their first spear’s expectations in terms of either drill or weapons handling.
‘We’ll do it again tonight, gentlemen, and we’ll keep doing it until the entire legion can get out of its blankets and into formation to defend the camp in less time than it takes for a new recruit to blow his load the first time his mates take him into a brothel to get his fucking cherry popped!’
The legion’s centurions looked at each other in disgust at the prospect of yet another night’s sleep being rudely disturbed, and Julius shrugged, shaking his head at them.
‘Don’t be giving me the cow’s eyes, because one of these nights you might owe your life to these drills. If you want me to stop them then persuade your fucking halfwits to get it right.’
Scaurus had instructed his senior officers to take their share of the duties expected of the cohorts’ senior centurions, and Marcus took command of the night watch that evening with a wry smile at the duty centurions as they trooped away from the briefing.
‘You’re really convinced that the enemy are going to attempt a night attack at some point?’