‘A song! Come on, Knuckles, you punch-drunk old bastard, start us off!’
Otho glared at him in mock annoyance, then threw his head back and bellowed the first lines of an old favourite at the ceiling. ‘When I’m on patrol the farmers hide their chickens and their eggs,
And watch their daughters just in case I sneak between their legs,
But they forget that I will take my pleasure where I can…’
The other centurions joined in for the verse’s last line, their voices raised to a roar that put a wry smile on Scaurus’s face. ‘So I shag the sheep and the billy goat too, ’cause I’m a Tungrian!’
As the other centurions joined in Julius went to fill up Dubnus’s cup, only to find the younger man’s hand covering it. He raised an eyebrow, bending close to shout in the younger man’s ear.
‘What’s wrong with you? Losing your taste for the wine already?’
Dubnus shook his head, pointing at the cup.
‘Just half a cup, and I’ll water it. I’ve got to march east tomorrow with half a dozen disgraced road menders who insist on coming along for the walk.’
Julius raised his eyebrows in question, but Dubnus shook his head disparagingly.
‘It’s no big thing, just an errand I promised to run for a man I met on the North Road.’
Otho threw his head back again, bellowing out the next verse while his brother officers raised their cups to him and drained them. Outside, in the fort’s torchlit road, with the boisterous singing audible over the wind’s moan as it pulled at the fort’s exposed roofs, Felicia stopped walking down the steep slope to Marcus’s quarters at the end of the 9th Century’s barrack, and turned to her new husband with a gentle smile.
‘Go back in, Marcus. Go and join them, just for a while. I’m too tired to do anything but fall asleep the moment I get into bed, so you might as well enjoy the company of your friends. They’ve taken you into their family, so you should go and be part of it when you have the chance.’
The young centurion walked back into the praetorium’s dining room to a chorus of ribald abuse centred on the obvious fact that he had clearly been unable to satisfy his woman, smiling resignedly as he took the brimming cup offered to him by Julius.
‘Well, if you’ve come back to join the party, Two Knives, you’d better sing the next verse!’
Egged on by the raucous centurions, he stepped forward and took a gulp of wine, then roared out the lines he’d sung so often with his century on the march. ‘I’m back from bloody battle, I’ve got money on my belt,
And I’m full enough of spunk to make an armoured codpiece melt…’
Outside, standing close to the room’s window, Felicia heard his voice raised in song and smiled to herself, putting a hand to her gently bulging belly and moving off down the road’s slope to their quarters.
‘A lifetime or a year, my love, we’ll make every moment precious.’
The wind from the sea was bitingly cold by the time Clodia had finished her work at the Waterside Fort’s official guest house, her legs aching from a day spent on her feet, cleaning and cooking for the house’s guests. She stepped out into the torchlit street, shaking her head in disgust as a pair of soldiers paused in their staggering progress from the vicus alehouse back to their barracks to leer drunkenly at her, but her discouragement only seemed to encourage the pair to push harder at her misery. One of them stayed rooted to the spot, too drunk to participate in the fun, but the other man, a heavyset watch officer who had long expressed an interest in her, persisted with a staggering walk that put him firmly in her path, swaying and pointing a finger at her with a knowing leer.
‘Come on, Clodia, you know he’s dead and gone. Give us a kiss and I’ll show you what you’ve been missing all these months. And I’ve got a bigger…’
Without warning, an big bearded infantry centurion loomed out of the vicus shadows and stepped in front of her, putting one massive hand on the cavalryman’s chest with the other clenched behind his back, visible to the harassed woman but not to her assailant.
‘The lady doesn’t want your pissed-up attentions, soldier. Take it away to your bed and come back for another try when you’re sober.’
The drunk staggered backwards, then bridled and went on the offensive, jabbing a finger at the newcomer.
‘Fuck you, you mule bastard! You and your mates… I’ll do the lot of you…’ Clodia looked around, and found that half a dozen hard-faced infantrymen were backing up their centurion. The senior man nodded respectfully to her, speaking quietly in a moment of silence while the drunken cavalryman swayed and smiled to himself with pride at his defiance.
‘Don’t mind us, ma’am, the centurion will put this idiot to sleep soon enough and then we can all go back to what we were doing.’
Another pair of Petriana men exited the beer shop to find out what the shouting was all about, stopping in the doorway when they saw the auxiliary soldiers waiting for them.
‘I’ll fucking do the lot of you, you sheep-shagging bastards…’
The drunkard swung a fist at the officer, who leaned back far enough to allow it clear passage, then stepped forward and pushed at the other man’s chest, sending him back half a dozen steps.
‘If you try that again I’ll be forced to put you on your back…’
The cavalryman charged forward, spreading both arms in a clear attempt to grapple with his assailant, but the centurion, rather than stepping back to avoid the attack, took a pace forward. His first punch was a jab, stopping the drunk in his tracks with a sickening pop of broken cartilage, his second and last blow a leisurely right hook that dropped his assailant senseless to the street’s mud. He looked around at the meagre audience, spreading his hands in question, while the unconscious cavalryman’s drinking partner goggled at him in drunken bemusement, and the other two men scowled their anger from a safe distance.
‘And that’s why you’re on your back. Now, does anybody else think they want a go? I’ve not had a proper fight in months, so I could do with the practice. Nobody? You two, you look like you fancy trying your luck…’ The men watching from the beer shop’s entrance blanched and walked quickly away, drawing amused looks from the soldiers behind their officer, who shook his head with something approaching genuine regret as he called after them. ‘Good choice. Now bugger off and mind your own business.’ He turned back to the woman, bowed and offered him her hand. ‘Madam, my apologies for that unfortunate scene.’ He took a deep breath, steeling himself for the task at hand, and the woman stared up at him with mute distress. ‘I cannot pretend that I’m here with good news, but I do bring something that will soften the blow I’m sure you’re expecting. My name is Dubnus, and I was the last person to speak with your man before he departed this life. Perhaps you could take us to somewhere we can speak privately.’
In the privacy of her tiny room, with the other men of his century waiting outside, he told her how she had been at the heart of the dying man’s last thoughts.
‘He died in battle, fighting to the last, but we were the only men to see it happen. He was carrying a message for the Petriana’s tribune, and he fought to the death to defend it. Your man was twice the soldier those drunken fools will ever be, and his last wish was that we should bring this to you.’
Nodding her tearful thanks, the woman looked wanly at the purse. It was somewhat heavier than had originally been the case, the product of the 3rd Century’s vigorous fund-raising throughout their cohort upon their return to Noisy Valley. Their new-found reputation, built on the back of a wild charge north to rescue the fortress’s doctor with an apparently insane auxiliary centurion at their head, had paid dividends, and reduced the number of their fellows willing to accuse them of cowardice to a foolhardy few who had swiftly found the 3rd Century in their faces and ready to fight for their reputation. Clodia opened the purse and peeked inside, her face brightening slightly at the amount of gold it contained.
‘It can’t replace your man, but it can make life easier for you for a while. It can give you time… to… well…’
Sensing the centurion’s embarrassment, she took his hands in hers, silencing his stuttering flow of words.
‘Thank you, Centurion. You’re all very kind. I’ve known he’s dead for weeks now, when the wing came home without him, but it helps to know the truth. Will you be here for very long, you and your men? I’d like to show my gratitude in some way, if only with enough money to buy you all a drink?’
Dubnus stood, looking down at the woman with a gentle shake of his head.
‘Thank you, ma’am, but we must march east in the morning. These men will have a new centurion waiting for them, and my own cohort is ordered to cross the sea before the winter comes. We’re to strengthen the defences in
