Fortress of Spears
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Authors: Anthony Riches
Fortress of Spears
Empire: Volume Three
ANTHONY RICHES
First published in Great Britain in 2011 by Hodder & Stoughton An Hachette UK Company
Copyright © Anthony Riches 2011
The right of Anthony Riches to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
Epub ISBN: 978 1 848 94858 7
Hardback 978 0 340 92036 7
Trade paperback 978 0 340 92037 4
Collectors’ Edition 978 1 444 72679 4
Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
338 Euston Road
London
NW
1 3
BH
For John, Katie and Nick
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
In the generation of any book there are always pivotal individuals, people without whose input the work involved would be made harder, less pleasant, even downright difficult.
Fortress of Spears
, although it’s been enjoyable (and somewhat different, having been written in the main in a walk-in closet in South Carolina), has been no exception to that rule.
Inevitably the biggest accolade must go to my wife Helen for putting up with all that tedious stuff that I expect many writers put their families through – the ‘it’s not good enough’ worries, the staring into space thinking about cars and cameras rather than writing, the ‘I just had an idea for the book’ as you crawl into bed at 2.30 in the morning, still fizzing with creativity and unmistakably wide awake, and finally the unutterable smugness of that completed-manuscript moment. All that would be bad enough, but it’s even worse when the writer in question has to compress all that angst into one week a month at home.
For their patience in never once asking where the hell the manuscript was, Robin Wade (agent) and Carolyn Caughey (editor) deserve major credit. Perhaps I can crank out
The Leopard Sword
on a timelier basis. Francine Toon stood in for Carolyn with aplomb whenever Carolyn was absent, and managed my various whinges without batting an eyelid. And while I have only a hazy idea of what they actually do in support of the books, I know that Hodder’s sales and marketing teams have to be doing a great job given the results they’ve achieved over the last two years. Ladies and gentlemen, whatever it is you’re doing, thanks very much and please don’t stop!
At this point I must also make a point of thanking Ian Paten, most excellent of copy editors, for his invaluable work in not only making sense of my inconsistencies, but helping me to avoid more than one embarrassing mistake.
As usual, I’ve exposed the script to a small and trusted group of friends in search of critical feedback, and so to Robin Carter, Paul Browne, David Mooney, John Prigent and Russell Whitfield, thank you, gentlemen, for your comments and typo spotting. I also exposed my concern about a lack of story development to my friend and business partner Graham Lockhart a few months back, only to receive the following advice in his broad Glesga accent: ‘Just do what you always do. Invent some more characters and let them sort the story out for you!’ Sound advice. I did, and they did, and so the lesson was relearned. Thanks, Jockzilla!
Writing
Fortress
also provided another textbook example of how the ancient-warfare community always pitches in to help when asked. Members of the highly rated Roman Army Talk website
www.romanarmytalk.com
never failed to come up with answers to the most arcane of questions and provided a first-rate source of information (and sometimes entertainment!). Kevan White’s excellent website
www.roman-britain.org
continued to be a compendious source on all things to do with the frontier area in which this story is set. And while I wasn’t able to take up John Conyard’s generous offer to try out the Roman style of riding owing to a protracted family illness that chewed up all my spare time for six months, meeting John and the Comitatus guys at Maryport was a great moment for me. John’s fund of information contributed at least one little snippet of
Fortress
that I think he’ll recognise.
Finally, on the ‘learning more about being a Roman soldier’ front, the year was also remarkable for the charity walk along Hadrian’s Wall in full armour (and I do mean ‘full’ armour), sixty pounds of the stuff with all the weapons and shield. Adrian Wink at Armamentaria kitted me out in the full kit, David Mooney tried to get me fit before the event – and succeeded in getting me soaked to the skin and hugely blistered on more than one occasion – and Julian Dear walked the whole way behind me, variously encouraging, browbeating and taking the mickey out of me as appropriate. Carolyn drove a very long way to be there at the end of the walk, which was nice, and Robin, rufty-tufty type that he is, dragged me along the route in true infanteering style. Chaps, I couldn’t have done it without you, and not only would I have missed the chance to experience just what the average Roman soldier was put through on a daily basis, but Help for Heroes would have lost a nice chunk of cash. Well done to all. I’ll certainly never write another passage about Tungrians on the march without reflecting on just how hard it was to drag all that iron around. Speaking of HfH, it’s not too late to donate. The wall-walk page is still open and you can find it via my website
www.anthonyriches.com
. As I write, the armed forces have been hacked by the Treasury once again, doubtless putting an even smaller number of men and women under even more pressure, which makes this the best place to start charitable giving for me. And off the soapbox …
Lastly, to everyone else that’s helped me this time round but not been mentioned, to use that old cliché, it’s not you, it’s me. Those people that work alongside me will tell you how poor my memory can be, so if I’ve forgotten you then here’s a blanket apology. Where the history is right it’s because I’ve had some great help, and where it’s not it’s all my own work.
Thank you.
Prologue
Rome, August, AD 182
The first of the young senator’s bodyguards died slowly, choking to death on the cobbles with his sword only half drawn from its scabbard. He stared up at his killer with bulging eyes while the assassin turned away from him and drew his gladius, facing the younger of the two men with a grim smile. He had stepped out of a side alley in a street whose sudden quiet should have been enough of a warning to an experienced man, punching a half-fist into the veteran soldier’s throat before the bodyguard had the time to realise that he was under attack. The senator and his remaining protector fell back a few paces, both men staring in amazement at their companion as he writhed and kicked in the throes of his death spasm.
Another man stepped from the alley’s shadows in the killer’s wake, and leaned against the wall of a shop in the late afternoon’s warmth, his face set in an expression of boredom. Where the bodyguard’s murderer was heavyset, with arms that rippled with hard muscle, the man that accompanied him was tall and thin. His voice, when he spoke, was agreeable, and almost soothing in the softness of its tone.
‘Greeting, Tiberius Sulpicius Quirinius. Forgive me, but I can’t help thinking that you’ve made something of a blunder in your choice of protection today. Hiring retired soldiers is all very well, but they do tend to know more about throwing spears at barbarians than the dangers of the streets, as your man here is so noisily demonstrating. And the savings to be had from hiring a boy to do a man’s work are so often outweighed by the resulting costs. Wouldn’t you agree, Senator Quirinius, given that you chose to chance a district as rough as the Subura with only these two innocents for protection?’
The prostrate bodyguard shuddered in one last desperate effort to breathe through his ruptured throat, and then sagged back to lie still on the stones. Quirinius drew himself up, staring at the taller of the two men with an air of confidence that he was a long way from feeling.
‘What in Hades do you think you’re doing? Who are you, to challenge an unarmed senator of Rome in the open street?’
The thin man smiled widely, spreading his hands in greeting.
‘Who am I, Senator? I’m Tiberius Varius Excingus, and
I’m
one of the Emperor’s corn officers. This is my colleague, Quintus Sestius Rapax. He’s a praetorian officer, believe it or not, but he’s never lost the taste for killing even after his richly deserved promotion to centurion. As to what we’re doing? Well, you might be a senator, but you’re clearly still wet behind the ears, or you might have been a little more careful in the last few hours.’