The Eagle's Vengeance (12 page)

He waited for Drest to translate, smiling grimly as the threat of violence sank into the twins’ expressions.

‘These two men …’ He hooked a thumb back over his shoulder at the barbarians behind him. ‘… are the two nastiest bastards you’re ever likely to encounter, and they both seem to have a soft spot for Centurion Corvus for reasons I struggle to understand. So, in the event that either of you takes a blade to
my
centurion without
my
permission, they are both ordered to take their iron to
you
with equal vigour. And that, gentlemen, will mean that you will be fighting for your lives. Do. You. Understand?’

Both men listened to the translation with glum faces, nodding at its completion. Julius nodded dourly, speaking over his shoulder as he turned away to get the column moving.

‘Good. You two, watch them. And don’t wait for an order to deal with them if they get uppity, just put them out of the fight in any way you choose, and we’ll worry about the niceties afterwards.’

‘Niceties?’

Arminius smiled knowingly at Lugos’s frown. The hulking Selgovae tribesman’s grasp of Latin had improved over the months since his capture early in the campaign against Calgus, but many words still eluded his understanding.

‘Yes. Niceties. You know the sort of thing, finding a small coin to put in the dead man’s mouth for the ferryman. Gathering wood for a pyre.’

Lugos nodded solemnly.

‘Niceties. A good word. I would remember it.’

‘I
will
remember it.’

The big man turned to stare down at the Fifth Century soldier who had reflexively corrected him without any invitation to do so, his expression quizzical.

‘This is … wait, I remember … yes, this is …
piss taking
?’

‘No!’

The Tungrian’s eyes widened, and he raised his hands in disavowal of any idea that he might have been making fun of the Selgovae warrior looming over him. Lugos stooped his neck until his face was close to the soldier’s, who was prevented from shrinking away by the unhelpful refusal to budge of the men behind him, and patted his hammer’s roughly shaped iron beak.

‘Yes.
Will
. Is another good word. I
will
teach you not take piss. I
will
give you tickle with hammer. You
will
need “niceties”.’

Arminius peered around the big man at the terrified soldier, raising an eyebrow.

‘What he needs is a change of leggings, I’d say. Leave him alone you big horrible bastard, you’ve made your point.’

The Tungrians marched north again that morning at a fast pace, alternating the double march with the standard pace all day to cover the best part of thirty miles, their hobnailed boots rapping onto the parade ground at Three Mountains an hour before sunset. Julius watched his men stagger wearily onto the flat surface with an appraising stare, grateful that he’d not been carrying a shield, spears or a pack for the day’s march.

‘The men are just about shattered, Tribune, so I propose that just this once we might break the first commandment and allow them to use the marching camp that was left here last year when the Petriana wing cornered the Venicones in the ruins of the fort.’

The burned-out shell of the large fort that had guarded the road north before the northern tribes’ revolt stood before them, its soot-stained stone walls looming over the parade ground in mute testimony to the ferocity of the storm of iron that had washed over the empire’s northernmost defence under Calgus’s leadership. Tribune Scaurus nodded slowly, scanning the fort with hard eyes.

‘That looks like a punishment frame up there.’

Julius turned back to face him with a grim smile.

‘It is, and it was used to torture and kill one of our own not too long ago. One of the Petriana’s decurions told our own tame cavalry decurion the story, and Silus told it to me in turn one night after a few beers. It seems one of the Petriana’s officers had a hard-on for treasure, and used to go looting whenever he got the chance. Silus knew the man of course, and he told me that he kept his stolen gold in an oak chest that was always locked, with no one brave enough to try to rob him on account of how fierce he was. Anyway, although they never found out quite how it happened, the same night that our old friend Tribune Licinius managed to bottle up the Venicones in there –’ he tipped his head at the fort’s blackened walls ‘– while he was chasing them north after we beat Calgus at the Battle of the Forest, the ink monkeys crept out in the dark and lured this gold-struck idiot into some sort of trap. They dragged him off into the fort, strapped him up there on that frame and went to work on him with their knives right in front of the cavalry lads, cut him a hundred times and then stuck a spear through each thigh and slit his belly wide open, but he never gave out as much as a squeak. Which, fool though he was, is not something I could have hoped to match under the same circumstances. In the end their king got bored of the whole thing and cut his throat, leaving him hanging up there as a lesson for the horse boys to keep their distance. Apparently when the tribune ordered his campaign chest to be opened there was enough gold in there to retire a legion century and still have enough left over for them to get pissed and laid every night for a month.’

Scaurus smiled wryly at the first spear.

‘The moral being not to get too greedy, eh?’

Julius barked out a laugh.

‘The moral being not to be so stupid as to wander away from your unit at night when there’s barbarians about, I’d say. Anyway, the fort’s unusable without a few days’ putting new gates up and the men are just about beaten for the day, so …’

The tribune nodded.

‘Agreed. It’s not as if there’s a barbarian army in the field. We’ll use the existing marching camp, but let’s not relax too much. We’ll do without listening patrols, since there won’t be anything to listen to out here, but let’s keep the guard routine nice and tight, shall we?’

‘I never thought I’d be so grateful to see another bloody legion fortress.’

Felicia glanced across at Annia with a look of concern, realising from her assistant’s pale face and look of discomfort that she was badly in need of a rest from the wagon’s constant rattling over the road’s cobbles. The high stone walls of Yew Grove had come into sight as the road had crested the last hill that lay between the gold convoy and its destination in the softening light of late afternoon, and the soldiers marching at the convoy’s front and rear had promptly started belting out a marching song at the tops of their voices.

‘They sound rather grateful too.’

Annia managed a strained smile at her friend’s straight-faced statement.

‘I’d imagine they’re sending a message to the vicus whorehouses, given that we’re less than a mile away from hot baths and free time.’

Felicia laughed.

‘You’re probably right. When did a man ever think with anything other than his stomach and what hangs from the end of it?’

She passed across the leather bottle which she had filled with tea brewed from the leaves of the raspberry bush the previous evening.

‘Another drink of this might help to ease the cramp?’

Annia waved it away with a disgusted expression.

‘I’ve already had enough of that for one lifetime. The midwives may well swear by it, but all I know is that it tastes like horse piss. Save it to offer your new suitor, one mouthful of that might shrivel his prick up for a day or two and stop him sniffing round you like a dog after a bitch.’

Felicia’s expression darkened. Tribune Sorex had met the convoy just after midday, escorted by several centuries of legionaries heading north under the command of a hard-faced centurion with a thick black beard and a long scar that bisected one eye and ran to his jaw.

‘On you march, Centurion Gynax, I’ll escort the gold back into the fortress. Good luck with your quest for the eagle!’

Gynax had saluted with what had looked to Felicia like a knowing look, and Sorex had sent his men on to the north with a lazy wave of one hand before reining his horse in alongside that of the camp prefect and chatting to his more experienced subordinate for a while. Once satisfied that no harm had befallen his precious cargo, he had dropped down the convoy’s line until the medical wagon had passed, falling in alongside the doctor with a broad smile.

‘Well now, ladies, how are you? I swear you both look more radiant then you did yesterday, if that’s possible!’

Annia, slumped heavily in her place on the wagon’s bench seat in a position intended to protect her from the road’s potholes, had regarded him with a disbelieving glare, and Felicia, sharing her discomfort at his insincerity, had answered with care.

‘And you, Tribune, you truly look as if you don’t have a care in the world. How do you keep such equanimity under such trying circumstances?’

Sorex had smiled back at her, allowing his hard gaze to linger on her body for longer than might have been polite.

‘Equanimity, madam? It’s simple enough. My gold is about to roll into the strong stone walls of a legion fortress, where it will be carried down into the chapel of the standards and placed under twenty-four hour guard …’

‘
Your
gold?’

He’d affected not to have heard Annia’s muttered response.

‘Apart from that, I have several centuries heading north to investigate a fresh piece of information as to the whereabouts of my legion’s missing eagle—’

Annia’s response was louder than before, and she’d leaned forward awkwardly with a questioning look.

‘You sent our men north yesterday to chase your eagle, following “unmistakable intelligence” as to the eagle’s whereabouts, as I heard it. So what news do you have now?’

Clearly taken aback at being questioned by a mere doctor’s orderly, he’d frowned at her for a moment before deciding to dignify the question with a response.

‘As it happens, madam, we have information that the lost eagle, far from residing in the Venicone fortress to the far north, may well have been sent south to dwell among the Brigantes. A sort of double bluff, if you like, hiding the thing where we are least likely to look for it. Of course the tip may be false, but I would be failing in my duty were I not to investigate the report, wouldn’t you say?’

Felicia had nodded, tapping her assistant’s ankle with her toe in warning.

‘Quite so, Tribune. I’m sure that you will be leaving no stone unturned in your search for such an emotive symbol of your legion’s pride.’

Sorex had bowed his head in recognition of her words, the predatory smile returning to his face.

‘
Emotive!
Just the term I would have used myself! You really are quite a lady, Doctor, both erudite and possessed of looks that would put Aphrodite to shame were a comparison ever possible. I look forward to seeing more of you!’

And with that he had spurred his horse back up the column, leaving the women staring after him in a combination of bemusement and disbelief. Annia shook her head in disgust, leaning back in the wagon’s uncomfortable bench seat.

‘Best beware that one, I’d say. I ran a whorehouse for long enough that I’ve seen thousands of men looking for sex, but only a very few with the look that one has about him. He’s a taker, and a cruel-looking bastard at that, and if you let him get you alone he’ll be buried up to his balls in you before you know it, and you without much choice in the matter I’d guess.’

Felicia had stared at the tribune’s receding back with a troubled expression.

‘Yes, I’ve seen that look before. It’s the one my first husband used to give to the women he regarded as being there solely for the purpose of conquest, once he had me safely married. As you say, I may have my work cut out to avoid the tribune’s attentions until our men return from the north.’

‘It just don’t feel right to me. It’s like going to a whorehouse without getting a few beers down your neck first.’

Spared the usual labour of throwing up a turf-walled marching camp, the Tungrians found themselves bemused at the opportunity to do nothing more than sit around their tents and talk, waiting for their rations to be prepared by those men deemed suitably skilled in the use of the big iron cook pots that each century dragged into their section of the camp from the mule carts that carried their tents.

Sanga grinned lopsidedly at the speaker, a soldier from the adjoining tent party by the name of Horta who was known to fancy himself as the big man whilst never quite finding the courage to square up to the party’s de facto leader and press his claim.

‘From what I’ve heard you’re more one for getting a few too many beers down your neck first, and then presenting your chosen lady of the evening with a length of saggy meat that’s no use to either of you!’

His mates guffawed quietly, used to his acerbic way and well-practised in giving him a taste of his own repartee if he persisted with levity at their expense, but Horta, it seemed, was less able to enter into the cut and thrust of the continuous jockeying for position that was part and parcel of life in the cohort.

‘Fuck you, Sanga, I can make any women squeal with delight!’

The men about him shook their heads in dismay, more than one of them wincing visibly. This, as they well knew, was not how the game was played. Sanga grinned at him again, his eyes slitting with calculation as he selected his response.

‘I
have
heard that from the ladies, to be fair.’ Heads lifted again, as the men around the pair waited for the follow up, knowing that the rough soldier was silently counting in his head as Horta nodded sagely, accepting the apparent compliment. ‘More than one of the whores we’ve both had has told me how happy she was to take your money in return for nothing worse than a peck on the cheek and a few reassuring words. So one or two of them must have squealed at the prospect of an hour off!’

The two tent parties collapsed in mirth, only Horta and his mate Sliga remaining stony faced.

‘Fuck you, Sanga!’

The veteran shook his head in bemusement, altering the tone of his voice to match that of the other soldier, albeit pitched two octaves higher.