Altar of Blood: Empire IX (12 page)

‘Isn’t it time you blew that blasted horn, Dubnus? How’s anyone going to know they should be rolled up in their blanket without you waking up that half of the camp that’s already asleep?

The Briton nodded.

‘A good reminder Cotta, thank you.’ He walked away to the tent he shared with Marcus and Varus, ducking back out with a bull’s horn in one hand. ‘You’ll thank me one day, when we’re scattered in some gloomy German forest and this sound is all we have to bring us back together, blown by lungs that have been trained to the peak of perfection.’

He put the horn to his lips, dragged in a lungful of air and then blew with all his strength. A mournful note blared out across the landscape, eliciting the customary barrage of abuse from those of the detachment’s men who had already been asleep or dozing, while those who had worked the centurion’s night-time routine in with their own promptly turned over and closed their eyes. After a moment a plaintive voice shouted out into the night, disguised by the adoption of a higher pitch than the speaker usually spoke with.

‘Centurion?’

Dubnus smiled to himself, putting his hands on his hips and calling out a reply.

‘Yes?’

‘Do you know who this is?’

Shaking his head in amusement the Briton nodded.

‘Yes, Sanga, I know who it is.’

Silence fell for a moment, broken only by the titters of the men around Sanga and his own bitter profanity.

‘In that case … well blown sir!’

‘Fuck you too, Sanga. Now get some sleep. You’ll need to be up bright and early if you’re going to get that latrine filled in before breakfast.’

‘There it is, the river Rhenus.’

The road had reached the top of a long, shallow climb, opening up a vista that the Tungrians had ridden a thousand miles to see. They stared down at the river’s silver ribbon as it snaked through the countryside below them, Cotta nodding appreciatively as his gaze tracked the Rhenus from the southern horizon to the point at which it vanished from view to the north.

‘Now
that’s
a river.’

Lugos shook his head, his voice a bass growl.

‘I sail Euphrates.
That
a river.’

Cotta grinned at him.

‘That may be so, Lugos my friend, but I seem to recall that while you were sailing on that mighty river you got an arrow in your leg, and another soon after just to make sure you never forgot the first one! Seems to me like maybe rivers aren’t your best means of travel!’

Scaurus pointed to a ship that was crawling slowly upstream to the south.

‘It might not be as wide as the Euphrates, but it’s certainly wide enough to act as a natural frontier for the empire in combination with the river fleet. That ship will almost certainly have sailed from the fleet base south of Claudius’s Colony, which is where we’re heading.’ He spurred his beast to walk on. ‘Come, gentlemen, I have no desire to approach a frontier city after dark, whether in times of peace or not. It would only take one jumpy centurion and a lucky bolt-thrower shot to ruin a man’s entire day.’

The guard centurion commanding the city’s southern gate snapped off a crisp salute to Scaurus as soon as the tribune had identified himself, calling for one of the twin doorways that controlled entrance to the legion’s base to be opened. He was immaculately dressed, his mail and boots gleaming with the evident application of a great deal of polishing, his beard neatly trimmed, and those of his men who were in evidence were equally smartly turned out.

‘You’re expected, Tribune, you and your men. If you follow my chosen man he’ll take you to the bridge fort, and show you where the stables are. Our prefect’s allocated a spare barrack to you, not that space is hard to come by with half the cohort away in Britannia. Oh, and the governor asked to be informed as soon as you arrive sir, so I expect you’ll be receiving an invitation to his residence once you’ve had time to bathe and put on your best uniform.’

Scaurus nodded with a faint smile.

‘He’s keen on appearances, the governor?’

The centurion nodded briskly.

‘Exceptionally keen, Tribune.’

He looked as if there was more he might have ventured, but chose instead to indicate his second in command, waiting for the Tungrians by the twin gateways.

‘Festus will take you to your barrack, and show you where to draw rations for yourselves and the horses.’

He watched as the Tungrians marched away, clicking his fingers to summon his runner.

‘Give my regards to Decurion Dolfus, and tell him they’re here. You’ll find him at the cavalry barracks. Go!’

The detachment followed the chosen man down a long wide street, turning right once they were past the open expanse of a large forum and exiting the city by another gate. A wooden bridge stretched out before them, crossing the river’s wide expanse on a series of twenty or so stone pillars, and on the far bank the familiar shape of a cohort-sized fortress dominated the otherwise empty landscape, its walls surrounded by a three-sided moat filled with water from the Rhenus which itself provided the fourth side of its defence. Walking alongside the chosen man, Dubnus looked down the bridge’s length at the forested land on the eastern side of the river, empty apart from the stoutly constructed fort.

‘I expected the other bank to be built up, with a city of this size on our side, or at least farmed.’

The other man shook his head.

‘That’s the buffer zone. Tribes ain’t allowed to build there, nor farm. Military land …’

He fell silent, and the centurion looked about himself in interest as they strode out onto the bridge, watching as a flat-bottomed warship approached the bridge from their left, its sail and oars driving it upstream against the river’s flow.

‘How the fuck are they going to get
that
under
this
?’

The chosen man grinned at Sanga’s bemused question.

‘Everyone asks that the first time they see a ship go under the bridge.’

The detachment’s progress slowed to a dawdle as every man stared in unashamed amazement at the oncoming warship, its crew seemingly unconcerned with the impending disaster that loomed ever more likely with every foot the vessel progressed toward the bridge, the sail and mast looming over the heavy structure. Finally, when all hope of avoiding a collision between immovable stone and the warship’s delicate mast seemed lost, the captain barked out a series of commands that saw the billowing sail swiftly furled. Then, less than twenty paces from the bridge, heavy wooden pins were struck from the mast’s base, allowing it to pivot down on a massive metal hinge and lie flat against the deck, lowered into place by sailors straining at heavy ropes to prevent it crashing down.

‘Fuck me …’

The chosen man grinned at Dubnus with the confidence of a man who had seen it all before.

‘They do it all the time, going up and down the river, and as far as we can tell they all have some sort of obsession with lowering the mast at the last possible moment. Only a few months ago one of them got it wrong and waited just a moment too long. Took his mast clean off and tore a hole the size of a mule in the ship’s deck. Our trumpeter was on duty, and the first spear told him to sound the retreat as loud as he could.’

Nodding in recognition of yet another scarcely believable feat, the Briton waved his men on.

‘Get moving! Has none of you ever seen a warship with a collapsible mast before?’

Crossing the bridge they marched into the fort, finding themselves housed in a barrack of the usual design, a long run of rooms designed to house an eight-man tent party with an officer’s room at one end of the building.

‘I suggest we put five men into each room and the officers can share the last two.’ The tribune turned to Arminius and pointed toward the block’s far end.

‘We’ll take the centurion’s room. I’ll need you to unpack my bronze and get it polished, make sure my best tunic’s clean and put a shine on my boots that would bring tears to a senior centurion’s eyes. I’m going to sweat the dirt out of my skin, and I’m going to take my officers with me, since these two young gentlemen …’ he indicated Marcus and Varus ‘… will doubtless be included in the governor’s invitation if only to assuage his curiosity. And since we’ll need Dubnus to act as a decoy for all the wretched thieves that breed in all frontier cities, Qadir and Cotta might as well come along too.’

The German nodded.

‘Yes Tribune.’ His eyes narrowed as he spotted Lupus easing back through the Tungrian ranks. ‘No you don’t, boy! Your centurion needs his boots polished, and I’m sure Centurion Varus would appreciate a similar service. Just because you’re a soldier now you’re not getting out of your duties that easily!’

Qadir hung his tunic on a wooden peg, placing his boots neatly beneath the garment and looking around the empty changing room with an expression that was almost fond.

‘A proper military bathhouse. I’ve not seen one of these for a while.’

Dubnus shot him a dubious glance, eyeing the attendants with suspicion.

‘I’ll be happy if I never see one again. Every time I set foot in these bloody places I end up losing something to the light-fingered bastards that run them.’

‘Which is why I suggested that we leave everything of value under the watchful eye of your men and walked here with nothing more than our tunics, belts and boots.’

The burly centurion shot Qadir another sour glance.

‘And it’s why I walked here in bare feet and with a length of twine for a belt. I’ve been robbed enough times to trust nobody in these places. And no, I don’t want to start in the exercise room, given I’ve already ridden twenty miles today, and not forgetting the indisputable fact that it’ll be full of weightlifters all oiling themselves up and gurning at each other.’

Grinning despite himself, Scaurus, who had gratefully but firmly resisted the suggestion that he might want to use the senior officers’ baths adjacent to the governor’s residence, led them into the warm room to get accustomed to the heat before braving the hot room. He flipped a coin to one of the boys waiting to provide the legion’s bathers with their requirements and the child scurried away, returning a few moments later bearing a tray loaded with a flask of wine and cups, while two more followed him in with a plate of honey cakes and a bottle of oil.

Scaurus poured each of them a cup, raising his own in salute.

‘Gentlemen, let’s drink to the successful completion of this latest little jaunt over the empire’s frontier.’

Seated across the room and feigning a dozing somnolence, having hurried to the bathhouse in time to have taken his place, the decurion called Dolfus watched the Tungrians through slitted eyes. Looking at each man in turn he muttered his comments on each to the men on his either side, two of them carefully oiling their limbs in evident preparation for the hot room, the other pair apparently engaged in a close game of dice. His words were clearly that of a man from the highest ranks of Roman society, clipped and precise.

‘Yes, they fit the descriptions perfectly. The tall one in the middle, hatchet face, black hair just starting to go grey, that’s Scaurus. Mark him well gentlemen, because if I’m not mistaken the governor bears a serious grudge towards the man. There’s bad blood there from something or other, and I don’t think it’s going to sort itself out without some kind of ugliness.’

He yawned and stretched luxuriously.

‘The big one with the beard a bird could nest in, he’s called Dubnus. He looks like a bit of a handful to me, and the men on the gate told me he carries an axe big enough to hack a man’s thigh in half. Blasted barbarians …’ He grinned at the man with the oil to highlight the intentional hypocrisy of his humour. ‘You’re all the same, aren’t you, all sharp iron and mad eyes?’

The trooper stared at him uncomprehendingly, and after a moment Dolfus shook his head and resumed his commentary.

‘Anyway, the Arab goes by the name of Qadir. Not worth much in a fight from the way he handles himself, but he’s a Hamian, so he could probably put an arrow into you from two hundred paces, if you were silly enough to stand still for him.’

He paused for a moment, looking at Marcus with a slight feeling of bafflement.

‘And the thin-faced, wiry-looking man is Corvus, although I’m told that’s a false name. Apparently he was the son of Appius Valerius Aquila …’ He looked at the uncomprehending face and tried again. ‘The son of a renowned senator who was falsely accused of being a traitor and put to death, after which Corvus is supposed to have carved a bloody path all the way from Britannia to Rome, killed all the men involved and then vanished like a ghost. He’s supposed to be sudden death with a sword, and better with two, although I’m damned if I can see it in him from the look on his face. But then I suppose we’ll have plenty of chances to find out, given what we’re being paid to do. As to quite who the other man is, I have no idea. There was no mention of him in any of the communications from Rome.’

He sat up, shaking off the torpor that was creeping over him in the warm room’s comfortable atmosphere.

‘And that’s enough exposure of our faces, I’d say. Give me that oil and we’ll go next door for a bit of a sweat while those gentlemen sit and drink their wine. They’ll be earning this moment of peace and quiet with their blood, soon enough.’

Ushered into the governor’s private office by a brow-beaten clerk, Scaurus and his two companions found themselves face-to-face with a big, bearded man dressed in the full panoply of his office, beautifully sculpted bronze armour over a perfectly tailored fine woollen tunic. His beard was worn full, in the imperial fashion that no senator would dare to ignore no matter how straggly his own facial hair might be, but trimmed so neatly that it was evidently the subject of daily barbering.

‘Ah, Tribune! Thank you for responding to my invitation so quickly! It’s good to see you after all this time!’

To his credit Scaurus didn’t miss a beat, stepping forward and saluting, while Marcus and his colleague Varus came to attention with impeccable precision.

‘Now gentlemen, please relax yourselves. Tribune, you, Centurion Corvus and I are old comrades in one of the most brutal wars of recent times, so we’ll not stand on ceremony. Steward, wine for my comrades and their colleague!