Fortress of Spears (15 page)

The praetorian paused for a moment, watching the tribune’s face intently. Sure enough, the man’s eyebrows twitched upwards minutely, and while Rapax could find some respect for the man’s almost complete control over his reaction to the identity of his travelling companion, he knew at that second that they had his measure.

‘I’m Sextus Pedius Paulus, tribune, Sixth Imperial Legion and commanding officer here. What brings a praetorian and a corn officer to Noisy Valley? Surely you’d have been better waiting until this local rebellion burned out before risking the North Road? I hear you have lost men to an encounter with the rebels.’

Rapax shrugged, dismissing his losses as a regrettable necessity.

‘We have travelled here from the imperial palace, Tribune, without pause for anything other than snatched meals and a few hours’ sleep each night, changing horses several times a day at the courier stables to cover as much distance as possible. That will give you some understanding of the urgency of our mission, and the reason why we pressed on at the cost of two good men killed by those barbarian bastards. We carry authorisation to command the support and assistance of any man in the empire should we have the need to do so.’ He paused to hand over a message scroll embossed with the imperial seal. ‘And our mission, Tribune, is to …’

‘One moment, Centurion.’ The tribune held up a hand to silence the praetorian, whose eyes narrowed at the interruption, scanning the scroll as he unrolled it. He frowned, staring hard at the name written at the bottom of the document. ‘This order is signed by the Praetorian Prefect. The Emperor’s name is nowhere to be seen, other than where the writer states that “the Emperor commands all true and loyal subjects to provide whatever service may be required by Centurions Rapax and Excingus, either together or individually”.’ He waved the scroll at the praetorian with a puzzled frown. ‘How is
this
an imperial decree?’

Excingus spoke for the first time, and Rapax sat back with a quiet smile as his colleague shook his head dismissively, his soft voice dismissing the objection without any hint of concern.

‘You’ve been away from Rome for a good while, Tribune? I guessed as much. During your absence, Tribune, my colleague’s noble prefect, Sextus Tigidius Perennis, has risen far in the estimation of our glorious Emperor. The prefect’s colleague, co-prefect of the guard Publius Tarrutenius Paternus, has been executed for the crime of procuring the murder of the Emperor’s
closest
friend, palace chamberlain Saoterus. Not only has Prefect Perennis been granted sole command of the Praetorian Guard as a result, but he has also been granted responsibility for far more than just safeguarding the imperial family. The prefect now conducts a substantial part of the throne’s affairs in order to free the Emperor for more important matters. As the Emperor’s right hand, therefore, the prefect has both the right and the
duty
to pursue the throne’s enemies, no matter where they may seek to take shelter from his master’s divine vengeance. It is the prefect’s strong expectation that any man of integrity and loyalty to the throne will provide my colleague here with any assistance he might need, but he asked me to accompany centurion Rapax, as a means of ensuring that help under any circumstance. You will, I’m sure, be aware of the special trust reposed in the Camp of the Foreigners by every emperor since the divine Hadrian himself turned the corn officers to his service.’

Tribune Paulus sat back in his chair, taking fresh stock of the two men facing him. A praetorian centurion with the looks of a killer, and an imperial spy more than happy to lean on the unnerving reputation of his office to get whatever he wanted. And both of them, it seemed, operating under the authority of a man known to be gathering power at a fearsome rate. He thought quickly, calculating how far he might push any resistance before making a target of himself.

‘I’ve heard of pairings such as yours before, gentlemen, and to be frank the example that’s been set hasn’t been a good one. What guarantee do I have that you’ll exercise your powers with appropriate responsibility?’

Rapax stared back at him, with a look that sent a shiver up the tribune’s back, his hoarse voice flatly uncompromising.

‘There’s nothing to fear from us, Tribune. Once we’ve tracked down this traitor we’ll do our business quickly and quietly, and return to Rome to inform my prefect that justice has been done.’

‘And seen to be done, Centurion?’

The praetorian shrugged.

‘Anyone that’s been sheltering the fugitive can expect to suffer imperial justice, that’s inevitable, but we understand the value of restraint. After all, you’re fighting a war here, and we wouldn’t want to impede your efforts to put this barbarian scum back in their place.’

The tribune nodded.

‘Quickly and quietly, then, and no excessive punishment of any officers who might have been deceived by this man Aquila?’

Excingus nodded firmly.

‘I think we understand each other, Tribune. In return for your assistance we’ll make sure that justice is served without a lot of unhelpful excitement.’

Tribune Paulus nodded, and shifted his weight forward in the chair, putting his hands on the desk in readiness to stand, but neither of the men facing him showed any sign of getting to their feet. Excingus frowned slightly, raising a hand to forestall Paulus.

‘There is just one more thing, Tribune. Hearing your name just now, I was reminded of something I was told shortly before I left Rome.’

Paulus nodded politely and sat back, feeling sudden discomfort with this new and apparently spontaneous line of discussion.

‘Yes, it was the day before we left the city. A former tribune of the Sixth Legion was found with his throat slit, apparently by his own hand. The bodies of his wife, child and closest relatives were found in the house with him, all dead from stab wounds. The assumption is that he must have lost his mind as a result of his experiences here in Britannia, and run amok with a dagger before using it to take his own life. A terrible shame, the child was less than two years old, and his wife was such a pretty little thing before he took his knife to her. I believe his name was … Quirinius?’ He made a show of consulting his tablet. ‘Ah yes, Tiberius Sulpicius Quirinius. He was a senator, since his father had killed himself only a few weeks before. Seems it ran in the family …’

Paulus stared at the two men with a growing sense of horror, both at the news they bore and its implications. Excingus continued, his expression suddenly almost predatory.

‘Senator Quirinius left a journal, of sorts, in which he made several interesting statements regarding his experiences in Britannia. The most startling of these was his professed knowledge of exactly who killed tribune Titus Tigidius Perennis.’

He waited for Paulus to react, stringing the silence out until the tribune had no option but to fill it.

‘But Perennis died in battle. He was …’

Excingus shook his head firmly.

‘And that’s what his father believed, until Senator Quirinius’s journal came to light. It seems that far from dying at the hands of the barbarians, dying honourably with blood on his sword, the prefect’s son was murdered by a Roman. The missing son of Senator Aquila seems to have made his way to Britannia in an attempt to avoid his fate, and Tribune Perennis in turn seems to have managed to find him. We believe that Aquila must have killed him in order to maintain the secrecy around his hiding place here on the frontier.’

Paulus pursed his lips and looked baffled.

‘Who would have harboured a known fugitive? That would be a death sentence!’

Excingus nodded agreement.

‘And not just for anyone foolish enough to protect the fugitive. Anyone else that became aware of his presence and failed to report it to the relevant authorities would carry the same burden of guilt. And the same punishment …’

He fixed Paulus with a hard stare, and his tone become accusatory as he continued.

‘The thing is, Tribune, that Senator Quirinius’s journal was quite adamant about two closely related facts. The first was that he had been told who it was that had killed your colleague Perennis. The second was that it was you who had shared that knowledge with him, apparently while you were under the influence of drink, one night after the battle in which your legion was stripped of its eagle and half its fighting strength. The battle in which the prefect’s son died, in fact.’

Paulus sat back in his chair, his face pale with shock.

‘I told him …’

‘Yes?’

‘I told him that a centurion serving with an auxiliary cohort attached to our legion was reputed to have killed the tribune before the battle.’

‘And that centurion was the fugitive Aquila?’

Paulus shook his head, his face blank.

‘I genuinely couldn’t say, Centurion. He was just another auxiliary centurion to me.’

‘From which cohort?’

‘The First Tungrian, as I recall it.’

‘And how did you know that this centurion was in fact the tribune’s killer?’

Paulus looked up, a hard edge coming into his voice.

‘If I tell you that, how am I to be sure you won’t take your threats to another good man?’

Excingus smiled evenly.

‘That depends on you, Tribune. There may be no need to involve anyone else in this, as long as my colleague here and I know where to go hunting for this fugitive. Of course, I’ll interrogate my way through this entire province if I’m forced to do so, but it’ll cost me time I badly need to avoid wasting, time in which the fugitive might be running for another hiding place. I should add that it would go badly for you too, in that case. And you have a large family in Hispania, I believe?’

The tribune’s face hardened, and his knuckles whitened against the dark wood of his desk. Rapax slid a hand to the hilt of his dagger, his body tensing. After a moment Paulus slumped slightly in his chair, the fight seeming to go out of him as the consequences of any rash action sank in.

‘Very well. I have no option but to take you at your word that you’ll go after this Aquila, rather than carving a bloody path through a body of loyal soldiers.’ He sighed, closing his eyes in resignation as he spoke. ‘A man I’ve known since childhood is serving as an officer with another auxiliary cohort. He pointed the centurion out to me during the battle’s aftermath. The Tungrians had held off ten times their strength for longer than we’d have ever thought possible, buying time for the other legions to reach the battlefield. Naturally we wanted to have a look at the damage they’d done to the warband, so we walked up the hill, over a carpet of bodies so thick that they were two and three deep at the point where the two lines had clashed. There were officers from half a dozen units standing around and marvelling at the scale of the slaughter, and that the Tungrians had survived such an onslaught. And the smell …’ He shook his head slightly at the memory of the reek of blood and faeces that had permeated his clothes for days afterwards. ‘One of the Tungrian centurions walked past, covered in blood and wide eyed with the strain of what his cohort had endured, and I commented to my friend the decurion that he had two swords strapped to his belt. That’s when he told me that he’d seen the same man earlier that day, standing over the body of Tribune Perennis.’

Excingus raised an eyebrow.

‘And that’s all he told you? None of the grisly details?’

Paulus laughed without mirth.

‘Oh, I tried to get them out of him all right. I might not have liked Perennis very much, but he was still a Roman tribune and my colleague. My friend just smiled at me, and told me that the less I knew the safer it would be for me. It seems we’d both have been better off if I’d never heard any of it …’

Excingus nodded, a glint of triumph in his eyes.

‘Yes. And better still for your colleague Quirinius, given that he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. And now, Tribune, I’ll trouble you for that one last piece of information. It’ll be hard for you to give it to me, but it’ll go harder on you and yours if you keep it from me. Who was this friend of yours, exactly?’

5

Out on the hills to the north of the Wall, the Venicones had restarted their long march to their homeland at first light. By mid-morning their pace across the barren hillsides was little better than a walk, despite the likelihood that the Roman cavalry would find them and recommence the deadly game that had played out the previous day. Many of Drust’s men had not eaten anything since the previous morning. The day had dawned bright and clear, and was now warm enough to make the marching barbarians sweat heavily in the absence of any breeze to cool their labouring bodies.

‘Come on, my lads, we’ll all just have to keep marching if we’re going to avoid being speared by those horse-shagging bastards! Another few miles will see us safe!’

The Venicone king’s voice was hoarse with bellowing his commands, but there was still a hard edge to his shouted encouragement that compelled Calgus to open his legs and stride out, despite his own experience in the art of cajoling his own men to greater efforts. He had watched Drust fighting off the Roman cavalry the previous day, pulling a horseman from his mount’s back with his war hammer’s spike and cutting the stunned horseman’s throat with a hunting knife the size of a short sword before he could recover from the fall, putting his head back in a savage howl of triumph as the soldier had spasmed out his death throes at his feet. More than once he had led the brief attacks that had punished those riders who had ridden too close to the warband, swinging his heavy pole-arm to fell their horses and leave the Romans easy meat for the men of his bodyguard clustered about him. Even the discovery that his body slave was missing, along with the gold torc that was the king’s badge of authority, had failed to put the man off his stride, although for all of Drust’s bravado, Calgus doubted that the loss was anything like as trivial as the Venicone was making out. Smiling wryly at his own acceptance of the need for pragmatism in defeat, when less than a week before he had been the leader of ten thousand warriors and on the verge of a victory to upset the balance of power across the entire province, Calgus put his head back and dragged down a lungful of air into his burning chest, forcing his feet to even greater speed despite the burning pains in his legs from the previous day’s exertions.