Fortress of Spears (37 page)

‘Greetings, Roman. While your presence is welcome to us, you can see that we have removed the Selgovae usurpers from among us and dealt with them as is appropriate with the warriors of a hostile tribe. We will provide you with the little hospitality we can, given the rather damaging events of the last few weeks, but I see no reason for you to trouble yourselves further on our behalf. This fortress is …’

Scaurus raised a hand, turning to Martos and beckoning him forward. He spoke to the prince in Latin, loudly enough to be heard by the watching elders.

‘Prince Martos, Iudocus here has obviously failed to recognise either me or the perilous situation that your tribe finds itself in. Perhaps you could help him to regain a secure footing in this discussion, before he does his people some irreparable damage. The translation thing’s a bit overdone too …’

Martos nodded and stepped out in front of his tribe’s remaining leadership, and it was immediately apparent that something was making them nervous. Marcus’s eyes narrowed as he watched them fight to keep their expressions neutral, and wondered whether it was their prince’s blood-blasted aspect that was troubling them, or something less obvious. Clearing his throat, Martos addressed his words directly to Iudocus, speaking in Latin rather than his own language.

‘The tribune has requested that I speak directly to you. You all know me, I am Martos, prince of this tribe and its rightful king with the murder of King Brennus. I went to war against the Romans alongside our king with your agreement. I fought alongside Calgus and the Selgovae as he directed, and I was betrayed to the Romans at the same time that he died at the hands of the Selgovae.’ The elders looked at each other with disquiet, and Iudocus turned to the translator, only to find Martos’s broken-nailed finger in his face, his lips twisted in anger. ‘You may not like me, Iudocus, you sour-faced, long-toothed pedlar of half-truths and outright deceits, but you will listen to me, or else I’ll do to you what I did to the Selgovae I found in the dark beyond this hall, once I’d finished climbing the south wall! You’re not too old to have
your
cock carved off and stuffed into your mouth just like them, you old bastard! And since it was your idea that we went to war with Calgus you can be sure I won’t hesitate to push you out there to share their fate at the hands of the women, if you give me any more cause. And you can forget the pretence that you don’t speak the tribune’s language, he’s been here before.’

He folded his arms and stepped aside with a dark stare that left the elders under no illusions as to the depth of his anger, while Iudocus looked at Scaurus with narrowed eyes, the ghost of a smile touching his lips. When he spoke his voice was clear and strong, with only a hint of the tremors of old age in his almost unaccented Latin.

‘You were here in the winter, I remember you now. A quiet visitor, content to watch and listen. Looking for signs that we would go to war with your people?’

Scaurus smiled with equal insincerity, cold eyes boring into the older man’s.

‘Not really, Elder. I knew the Votadini would join Calgus in his doomed rebellion as soon as I laid eyes on you and heard you speaking with your king. It was clear to me from the start that the “lord of the northern tribes” had you in his pocket, and that you in turn had sufficient influence with your king to seal his fate. No, Iudocus, I was here to make an assessment of your people, and how likely it was that they could field an effective force after fifty years of peaceful trading with Rome. I didn’t rate those chances very highly, but then I didn’t have much of a chance to take the measure of Prince Martos here until we met on the battlefield.’

‘Where he was taken prisoner rather than face his end in battle, I believe?’

Martos bunched his fists, but stayed silent with his face set granite hard.

‘Where he lost, in point of fact, as the result of being betrayed by Calgus, which was a part of his plans of which I’m sure you’re perfectly aware. Martos and his warriors were abandoned in the path of two angry legions, with the expectation that they would be slaughtered to the last man, I should imagine. Luckily for your people, he survived. Luckily for most of them, that is. Not so lucky for you, though, Iudocus. The prince here joined with us in the hope of gaining revenge for his king’s death, and I’d say he’s within an arm-span of dealing out a good-sized piece of that retribution at this very moment. Martos?’

The warrior stalked forward again, turning his face so that his remaining eye’s cold stare played on the elders. He pulled an ornately engraved hunting knife from his belt, turning the blade to send reflected flecks of light from the torches across the hall’s lofty roof beams.

‘This, elders of my tribe, is an honourable weapon which I have sworn only to unsheathe when the blood of my betrayers is within reach. I have already used it to take the life of one of the men responsible for my king’s death, a man called Aed. He was a man very much like you, old and clever, an adviser to his king and responsible for much of the needless destruction done by Calgus since this war began. I found a way into the Selgovae camp, after our betrayal and the slaughter of most of my warriors, and I put him at the point of this blade. When we were discovered I took his life with it. I sliced open his belly and allowed his guts out, but I took something else besides his life. Aed had a box full of his masters’ documents which, when the Romans read them to me, made sense of much that had puzzled me before.’

He turned away, speaking into the hall’s dark shadows.

‘One letter in particular made me realise what fools we all were to believe that Calgus was at war simply to expel the Romans from our lands.’ He turned back to face Iudocus, his face white with anger. ‘It was from you, Iudocus, telling Aed that Brennus was an old man and past his prime, with no “reliable” successor. Telling him that you could ensure the support of the elders, and therefore the people of this tribe, for a change of leadership should this prove necessary.’ He walked deliberately towards the elders, who to a man were slowly but surely inching away from their white-faced leader. ‘You condemned your king to death, Iudocus, and thousands of our warriors with him. Did you hope to take control of the tribe yourself, and find some innocent to be king while you pulled his strings from behind the throne? Some child, father recently dead in battle and whose mother was expected to pose no problem? Except my wife wasn’t taken in, was she? She saw through you in an instant, the way I should have done before we ever marched away to war and sealed both their fates. So you had her, and my daughter, tossed to the Selgovae dogs for their sport, and my son thrown to his death from the south rampart.’

Iudocus put his hands out as if to defend himself, his face pale with terror.

‘It was the Selgovae, they …’

A sheathed knife landed on the stone floor before him with a quiet clang, a small weapon more suited to a child’s hand than a man’s.

‘Before I started the climb up the south wall yesterday I found his body on the rocks near its foot, broken by the fall and picked clean by carrion birds. I knew it was him, this was still on the belt he was wearing. I gave it to him for his last birthday …’ He walked slowly to where the child-sized weapon lay, scooping it up and ripping off the rain-stained scabbard. ‘You had my son thrown from the palisade and you gave his mother and sister to the Selgovae as playthings. She’s dead, the women tell me, by her own hand rather than face any more of their torment. She killed my daughter first, a mercy killing you could say.’

He tossed the child’s blade at Iudocus’s feet and turned away to stare into the hall’s shadows, wiping a tear from his cheek before turning back to face the elders.

‘You’re all guilty of this. You all nodded at this goat-fucker’s suggestions, and you all turned a blind eye when he murdered my son and condemned my woman and child to a slow death at the hands of dozens of Selgovae warriors. By rights I should kill you all, here in this den of your evil …’

Scaurus stepped to his side, his face creased with anger and his hand raised to point a finger at Iudocus’s white face.

‘And we won’t raise a hand to stop the prince if that’s his choice. In fact I’d put good money down that Centurion Corvus here would take his swords to you alongside Martos, given the chance. He understands more than you can imagine about this sort of crime.’

Martos nodded his thanks to the tribune before turning back to the terrified elders.

‘I should kill you all … but to do that would leave the tribe without leadership. I can’t take the throne, I was as much to blame for the king’s death in my pride as you were in your deception and plotting. And with my son dead I have no heir to follow me, nor the appetite to take another woman for the purpose of breeding a successor. So, I shall be the kingmaker rather than the king, and my word will be law unless you all want to suffer a death as undignified as that of those you betrayed, and for your daughters and granddaughters to be whores for the legions. My sister’s son will be king, and you will guide him in the years that remain until he is old enough to rule alone.’

One of the elders opened his mouth to speak, but Martos raised a hand to forestall him.

‘The new king’s first act will be to sign a new friendship treaty with Rome, and this will include routine and frequent inspection visits to ensure that you fools are keeping your end of this distasteful bargain. This tribe will be an ally of Rome once more, and you will all work to ensure that friendship, or you will find this tribune, or one very much like him, calling you all to account.’

The elders exchanged glances, hardly daring to speak for fear of upsetting the delicate balance in Martos’s words. Iudocus stepped forward and nodded solemnly, spreading his arms as if to welcome the prince’s words.

‘Most regal, my lord, you have shown as us all …’

He stopped abruptly, looking down in confusion at the torrent of blood and bile pouring from his ruined belly. Martos had lunged forward with his hunting knife, concealed behind his back throughout his judgement on the elders, and ripped him open from hip to hip. He stepped back with a satisfied smile, watching as the stricken Iudocus fell to his knees and stared at him imploringly, a wavering moan of distress escaping from his lips as his blood puddled on the hall’s stone floor. The prince stared down at him contemptuously.

‘I said I was a realist, Iudocus. I didn’t say I was stupid. Besides, these sheep needed a reminder to take away with them of just how ruthless I’ll be if they ever stray from this agreement.’ He raised his voice. ‘I was careful not to open him up too widely, or to spill too much of his blood. This ruthless old bastard dies here, unaided and without any succour, and any man that touches him will die alongside him in equal agony. And when you’re dead, Iudocus, there’ll be no coin for the ferryman. I’m going to behead you and throw
your
headless body from the south rampart, where it can lie on the rocks to make a meal for the crows. Your head comes with me, as my guarantee that you’ll forever be caught between this world and the next. And as for you all …’ He pointed the knife at the horrified men standing around the elder’s spasming body. ‘This is the last and best warning that you’ll get. Cross me in any of what I’ve just commanded, and I will make sure you die just as slowly, and with just as little honour. Try me.’

10

Back at the fortress’s main gate, Marcus found a scene of orderly chaos as the Tungrians carried the last of the Selgovae dead through the wide archway and down the steep approach towards a rapidly growing pyre of wood that the other two cohorts were gathering from the nearby forest. Julius was standing in the gate’s shadow barking orders at the tired soldiers, and when he saw his fellow officer approaching down the fortress’s slope he waved a hand out over the plain below them, indicating the toiling soldiers crossing to and from the forest with bundles of firewood.

‘Once again the Twentieth Legion seems to have found its true role. You should have seen their first spear’s face when I told him and that tribune of theirs that the fight was already over. He looked like it was his birthday, and …’

A shout from the wall above him interrupted his musing.

‘Horsemen! To the west!’

Both centurions hurried up the ladder that led to the palisade’s rampart, turning to stare in the direction indicated by the sentry. At the limit of their vision, perhaps five miles to the west, Marcus could just make out a flicker of movement. A small band of riders with a long white banner trailing above them was riding for the fortress, the standard’s forked tail flickering in the wind of their passing. Julius shook his head with a disgusted look.

‘It’s the bloody Petriana. I’d know that dragon standard anywhere. I stood and watched the bloody thing fluttering in the breeze while they sat and watched us fighting and dying at Lost Eagle. And wherever that thing twists its tail you’ll usually find that wily old bastard Licinius.
You!
’ He shouted down to Scarface, who was standing at the bottom of the ladder. ‘Stop following your centurion around like some love-struck goat herder, go and find Tribune Scaurus and tell him that Tribune Licinius will be at the gate by the time he gets down here.
Go!
’

Scaurus joined his two officers in time to watch the last mile of the horsemen’s approach to the fortress. He stared out at the approaching cavalry squadron without any visible sign of surprise.

‘I’ve sent Martos to get some sleep, he was almost beside himself with fatigue. So, what have we here, just when I thought life was finally about to turn dull for the rest of the year? My colleague and his men aren’t riding like men who’ve decided to come by and see how we’ve done for the want of anything better to do.’

The Petriana’s tribune dismounted a dozen paces short of the gate and stalked up to the palisade wall with a grim smile, squinting up at Scaurus and his officers and then glancing back at the men building the pyre on the plain below the fortress. He called up to them, shielding his eyes with a raised hand.