one swift movement. He rolled head over heels through the undergrowth and made cover as an arrow embedded itself, juddering, in the trunk. An instant later came the faint but unmistakable sound of sudden and violent exhalation; someone had been hit.
‘I got him, masters,’ Artebudz shouted, his voice raised an octave in his excitement.
‘Is he dead?’ Magnus called.
There was a slight pause.
‘He is now.’
‘Thank fuck for that.’
Vespasian found Magnus and Artebudz standing over one of the bowmen’s corpses.
Magnus wrinkled his nose as he approached. ‘I can’t believe we didn’t smell them before they saw us, I’ve never smelt a savage as strong; they must have kept downwind of us.’
It was indeed a pungent aroma: a heady cocktail of all the major human male excretions, secretions and discharges that had been allowed to fester for years within clothes of semi-cured animal hide, which had probably never been removed since they were first donned; it was crowned with the acid stench of very old and ingrained horse sweat.
‘What is he?’ Vespasian asked recoiling, unable to believe his nose.
‘No idea. Artebudz, have you ever seen one of these?’
‘No master; but his beard’s ginger and his cap seems to be Thracian in style.’
Vespasian studied the man’s clothing; his cap was definitely Thracian in appearance, a leather skull-cap with long cheek flaps and neck protection, similar to those of the northern tribes in Moesia, as opposed the fox-fur hats of the southern tribes in Thracia itself. But this had crude depictions of horses embroidered in it with dyed twine and the cheek straps were tied under the chin. Apart from knee-length boots, the rest of his attire was definitely not Thracian: hide trousers, well worn on the inside thighs, suggesting a long time spent in the saddle, and a thigh- length leather top-coat worn over an undyed woollen tunic.
‘Scythian perhaps,’ Magnus ventured, picking up and examining the dead man’s composite horn and wood bow.
‘No, we’ve got one of them at home, they’re darker and they’ve got strange eyes; this man looks normal. Well, we can’t worry about it now, I need to get back to see my brother; we’ll send Artebudz back with some slaves to pick them and our dead hunting slave up tomorrow.’
Artebudz grinned, enjoying the implication that he would soon be free.
Vespasian turned away. ‘Let’s find the horses.’
It was dark by the time they reached the permanent garrison camp just outside the gates of Philippopolis. Vespasian dismissed Artebudz back to the royal stables with a warning to say nothing of the day’s events until he had spoken to the Queen, whose property he was. Returning the centurion of the watch’s salute at the Praetorian Gate, he and Magnus rode as quickly as possible, without causing alarm, down the Via Praetoria, between the low brick-built barrack huts towards his more comfortable residence on the junction with Via Principalis. Such was his anxiety that he barely noticed the ill feeling and restlessness with which over a thousand soldiers were taking their evening meal washed down with the generous garrison wine ration that was supplemented with stronger stuff that they had bought locally. His thoughts were alternating between the reason for his brother’s journey, how he would react to seeing him again after four years and why two outlandish-looking men had tried to kill him that afternoon.
‘The lads seem tense this evening.’ Magnus broke into his train of thought.
‘What?’
‘I’ve seen it before, sir, it can happen quite quickly; after a long time farting about doing a lot of bugger all on regular basis with nothing to show for it, the lads start to get edgy, and wonder what the fuck they’re doing here and how much longer they’re going to be stuck in this arsehole of a place. They’re legionaries and they haven’t had a decent fight for over three years, whereas the boys that went back to Moesia are getting plenty of action if half the rumours are true.’
Vespasian glanced around at the men sitting around braziers and saw more than a few of them glaring at him with resentful, sullen eyes over the top of their wine-filled cups. One or two of them even held his look, a minor act of insubordination that he would normally have dealt with then and there had he not been so preoccupied.
‘I’ll speak to Centurion Caelus in the morning and find out what’s going on,’ he said wearily, knowing full well that it was Caelus’ duty to come to him and report any bad feeling amongst the two cohorts that he commanded. It was just another example of how Caelus sought to subtly undermine his authority.
Vespasian dismounted outside his quarters; it was the same construction as that of the men’s but slightly larger and he was not obliged to share the two rooms inside with seven others.
‘I’ll get the horses stabled,’ Magnus offered, taking the reins from him.
‘Thank you, I’ll see you later.’ Vespasian took a deep breath and walked through the door.
‘So, little brother, you’re back from skulking about in the woods,’ drawled the familiar voice with no trace of affection or even friendship. Sabinus was sprawled out on the dining couch; he had evidently made use of the officers’ bath house as there was no sign of the dust and grime of travel about his appearance, and he was wearing a crisp, white, Equestrian toga over a clean tunic.
‘I may be your younger brother but I ceased to be little when I joined the Eagles,’ Vespasian snapped. ‘And, furthermore, I do not, and never did, skulk.’
Sabinus raised himself to his feet; his dark eyes glinted in the dim light of a couple of oil lamps as they glared mockingly at his brother. ‘Playing the big soldier are we? Next you’ll be telling me that you don’t fuck mules any more.’
‘Look Sabinus, if you’ve come all this way to have a fight let’s have it right now and then you can piss off back home again, otherwise try to remain civil and tell me what you’ve got to say.’ Vespasian squared up to his brother, his fists clenched by his side. Sabinus smiled thinly at him. Vespasian noticed that he had put on a bit of weight — four years out of the army and living the good life in Rome had left its mark.
‘Fair enough, little brother,’ Sabinus said, sitting down on a camp stool, ‘but old habits die hard. I’m not here to fight; I’m here on the Lady Antonia’s business. Aren’t you going to offer me a drink?’
‘If you’ve finished insulting me, then yes.’ Vespasian crossed to the far end of the room and took a pitcher from a cheaply constructed wooden chest standing next to the door leading through to the bedroom. He mixed a couple of cups of the rough, local wine with water and handed one to his brother. ‘How are our parents?’
‘They’re both well, I have letters for you from them.’
‘Letters?’ Vespasian’s eyes lit up.
‘Yes. I’ve got one from Caenis too, you can read it later; but first you should clean up and get changed, we have to deliver a letter from Antonia to Queen Tryphaena. We’ve got a job to do and we need her help.’
‘What sort of job?’
‘One that will make rescuing Caenis seem like a pleasant stroll through the Gardens of Lucullus. Do you know a Thracian tribe called the Getae?’
‘Never heard of them.’
‘Well, I don’t know much about them either except that they live outside the Empire across the Danuvius. They generally keep themselves busy fighting the tribes to their north but recently they’ve taken to crossing the river and raiding Moesia. The raids have been getting larger and more frequent in the last year or so and the Fifth Macedonica and the Fourth Scythica have been struggling to repel them; the Emperor has become concerned enough about the situation to reinstate Poppaeus Sabinus as Governor.’
‘What are we supposed to do about it?’ Vespasian asked, not liking the idea of going anywhere near Poppaeus again, knowing, as he did, that he was an ally of Sejanus.
‘Antonia doesn’t want us to do anything about the raids, they’re no concern of hers; but what does interest her is a piece of intelligence that one of her agents in Moesia sent a few months back.’
‘She’s got agents in Moesia?’
‘She’s got agents everywhere. Anyway, this one reported the presence in the last three or four of the raids of someone with whom the good lady is keen to have a nice little chat with back in Rome.’
‘And we’ve been asked to go and fetch him for her.’
Sabinus grinned. ‘How did you guess?’
Vespasian had a sinking feeling in the pit of his belly. ‘Who?’ he asked, already suspecting the answer.
