Ironroot (46 page)

“And your third choice?” he commented lightly as he strode back to the table, unsheathing the sword with a metallic rasp that set the teeth on edge, “Take the noble and least painful way out. As soon as you can. And certainly before the guard get here; they certainly won’t give you an opportunity afterwards.”

They made a point of taking the more circuitous route to the ceremony below. Exiting the camp’s stockade by the west gate, they strode down the hill in no great hurry, coming to a halt a little over half way along the slope, by a heap of fresh earth. They paused for a long moment, side by side and gazed at the shapeless mound that held the unmourned remains of the former prefect of the Fourth army.

As they watched, a crow landed fearlessly in front of them on the summit of the heap and began to investigate the freshly-turned earth for worms. Something about that made Salonius smile.

Walking on, they passed soldiers in full dress uniform, buffing every inch of steel to dazzling brightness. Most were too busy making sure they would meet the requirements of their officers to pay much attention to the two figures strolling amongst them, but those who did look up came to attention and saluted. Salonius returned their salutes as necessary, but still felt vaguely uncomfortable doing so. He was wearing his command guard uniform with the white horsehair crest which meant that he outranked most of the men of the second, but since his elevation to the position a mere two weeks ago, he’d spent little or no time among his peers, or indeed even wearing the uniform.

They came to a halt at the bottom of the slope where, on a slight hummock, the pyre had been constructed. Captain Iasus stood nearby, directing the affair with his familiar, curt and efficient manner. According to tradition, Varro would be sent to his afterlife with full military honours. Once the pyre had burned out and gone cold, his ashes would be placed in the urn that had been paid for by his contributions to the second cohort’s funeral club. They would then be escorted back to Crow Hill, where they would be buried in the military graveyard outside the west gate of the fort, under a finely carved tombstone chiselled by one of the cohort’s best stonemasons.

Salonius had only served a short time yet in the Imperial military, in a time of relative peace. Those deaths and funerals he had encountered in his time had been of non-ranking engineers. The engineering corps had turned out for them in their best uniforms and for the more notable occasions, a representative officer of the cohort from outside the engineers would attend. Nothing he had seen had come near this scale, though he realised these were somewhat exceptional circumstances. Normally a captain would be honoured only by his own.

Salonius glanced about him. The flags of all four northern armies fluttered in the breeze, carefully sited on a slight rise in order to catch what wind there was, yet far enough to put them out of danger of the flames when they came. The standards of the cohorts of the Fourth stood in rows, jammed into the ground, gleaming and glittering.

The pyre stood fully twice the height of an ordinary man, formed of logs cut from a thicket a quarter of a mile distant, and atop it lay the still figure of Varro, wrapped in Imperial green from head to toe. A sadness touched Salonius. Though Varro had been his captain and his superior, in many ways he had been closer to being a father than a commander. Briefly he wondered if anyone else in the Fourth felt that way or whether it was just the strange circumstances into which they’d been thrown together that had done this. He must remember to have a word with the stonemasons afterwards. Time to raise an altar to Cernus. Strange really. That would undoubtedly be the first altar set up in an Imperial shrine to a purely barbarian God.

He sighed as his mind drifted off into shadowy forests stalked by the stag lord. For a long time they stood, staring at the pyre, lost in their thoughts. At some time during that interminable wait, Catilina had slid her hand into his, though neither of them remembered it happening.

The bleating of the trumpets brought their attention back and they separated, standing proud and quiet. The last few men who were not in position pulled themselves into ranks. Many of the marshal’s guard were conspicuously absent as they stood guard over those men deemed to have some level of guilt in the uncovered conspiracy. Varro’s guard, resplendent in their white crests, stood positioned around the pyre, it being their task to set the flames. Salonius could have joined them; probably should have, but had elected to stay with Catilina instead.

As the trumpets called out their last note and the echoes rang off the hillsides, marshal Sabian strode into view, accompanied by a number of his senior officers and staff. He came to a halt between his daughter and Iasus, remaining standing and at attention. Mercurias sauntered across to join them, the dress uniform looking strangely inappropriate on the creased old man. The surgeon came to a halt behind them.

“Either of you two seen Scortius? I went to his tent before I came down here and there was no sign of him. I think he’d been drinking though.

Salonius and Catilina exchanged a curious and unreadable look.

“I expect he’ll turn up,” the young engineer said.

Epilogue

Prefect Salonius slipped off his horse just outside the great stone gate and handed the reins to one of his staff officers. Saravis Fork looked no different despite the decade that had passed. The sleepy town in the valley poured smoke forth into the early evening’s mauve sky. Squinting, he could even make out the inn where they’d met Petrus, but everything looked like a child’s wooden model from high in the Imperial fort. He smiled as he gave the valley a last, lingering look and tore his gaze away and walked through the gate, across the plateau, and to the wall walk.

Over the years since his rise, some would have said ‘meteoric’ rise through the ranks, he had found cause to revisit every place they had been during that hectic fortnight that had changed the world for him. Even the ruined villa had been on his list, though it was in a considerably worsened state following his efforts.

He’d been made captain the day following Varro’s funeral; quietly and with no ceremony. An officer he’d not known from the First had taken the prefect’s position and had done a good job of rebuilding the Fourth and repairing the damage Cristus had done. He’d worked with Salonius to promote the roles of what Cristus had always considered ‘support troops’ and these days engineers were generally considered a crucial part of any army. Indeed, the military’s reliance upon new ideas in both offensive and defensive engineering had been largely down to his own efforts and had led to a summons to Vengen where he had been presented to the Emperor Darius.

He’d not known what to expect of his Emperor in person, but the easy and almost familiar way the great man had dealt with him had further strengthened Salonius’ already rock-hard loyalty. How could an Empire fail with men like Darius and Sabian at the helm? It was that meeting, almost six years ago that had seen the reorganisation of the troops in the north and the creation of two new northern armies. It had been sad to leave the Fourth, but the opportunities offered as prefect of the new Twenty First had been great.

Sadly, that week at Vengen was the last time he’d seen Catilina too. She’d been out to visit a number of times early on, including that surprise visit after that first winter, when she’d turned up with Varro’s child howling and laughing in her arms.

He sighed. He should have asked her to marry him years ago, but even though he was sure her father would have approved, he knew deep down that he would only ever be a friend to her. And her life was full of her child, with her brother and father taking care of them, so he didn’t have to worry about her.

Salonius reached into the pouch that hung beneath his decorative prefect’s cloak and, scrabbling around inside, drew out a hand full of fine, grey powder. He smiled at the last of Varro’s remains. For over a decade he’d carried that pouch that he’d collected the morning after the funeral, and here, at Saravis Fork, he would make an end of it. Though buried in his urn at Crow Hill, something of captain Varro had been scattered to the wild northern winds everywhere they had been.

With a sad smile, he held up his hand and opened the fingers. The mountain winds immediately picked up the grey dust and whipped it from his hand, hurling it into the valley.

“Rest well, my friend.”

The smile still on his face, he stepped slowly back and watched the last grains of dust disappear beneath the flag of the Twenty First: a black banner bearing a white stag and a sword.

END