5
Rufius came through the storehouse door first, impaling the clerk with a fierce glare and gesturing with a thumb over his shoulder. The soldier, remembering his close encounter with the veteran officer’s dagger the previous day, made for the door, finding himself restrained by a muscular arm, as the centurion bent to whisper in his ear.
‘We’re all going to have a little chat with Annius about the quality of his rations. You’re going to stay outside and keep nosy people from trying to interrupt us. If anyone does disturb our discussion, we’ll set him on you.’
Antenoch stood in the doorway, locking his cold bruised eyes on the clerk’s for a moment before turning away to lift an axe handle from the wall, hefting it experimentally to test the wood’s weight. Behind him came Dubnus, in turn momentarily filling the doorway, his eyes flicking across the clerk without any recognition of his existence before he strode into the store. Released, the clerk bolted for the door willingly enough. Annius never cut him in on any of his swindles, so there was no reason to argue with anyone in his defence, much less that lunatic. He almost ran into the other new centurion in the entrance, shrinking back again to let the hollow-eyed officer walk through, the man not even seeming to notice him. Which suited the clerk well enough. What a combination – the freshly recruited veteran centurion he had already learned to fear and an officer the fort’s collective opinion had suddenly decided probably was man enough for the job, after all. He closed the door to the stores building and leant on it in what he hoped would appear a nonchalant attitude.
Rufius walked to the counter, dropped a bundle of equipment and clothing on to the wooden surface and smacked his hand down with a flat percussive crack.
‘Storeman!’
Annius bustled out of his office, looking about him for his clerk, then, pausing uncertainly at the sight of the new centurions, pasted an uncertain smile across his features and advanced to the counter. His jowly face and high forehead glistened minutely with pinprick beads of sweat.
‘Centurion Rufius! What a pleasure! Always good to have experienced officers join the cohort. And Centurion Corvus! All of the camp has heard of your prowess with the sword this morning, quite remarkable! How can I be of service to you and your, er… colleagues…?’
Finding his bonhomie unrewarded by Rufius’s stern expression, he looked uncertainly to Marcus, found no comfort there, and returned his regard to the older officer, his instincts muttering loudly in his inner ear to play things very carefully with this unknown quantity. How much could the man have discovered in less than a day? He cursed his own stupidity for letting that fool Trajan convince him to push the usual rake-off to such a high percentage.
To his surprise it was the younger man who stepped forward, raising a patrician eyebrow and curling his upper lip to complete the air of dissatisfaction.
‘This equipment, Quartermaster, issued to myself and my colleague Tiberius Rufius yesterday, is quite clearly defective in numerous regards. The mail is surface rusted, the sword is blunter than my grandmother’s butter knife, and even the tunics seem to have seen better days. I trust that you’ll want to remove them from service after what has clearly been a long and illustrious history, to judge from their condition. Oh, and I’m used to a longer sword than the infantry gladius, so see what you’ve got that’ll suit my style better, eh?’
Annius swallowed nervously, feeling a trickle of sweat running down his left temple. He scuttled back into the store, returning within a minute with two sets of officer’s equipment, his best. He would usually charge a new centurion two hundred and fifty for their full rig, unless they wanted somebody else’s leavings, but this was an occasion, he judged, to forget to mention payment.
‘I hope that these meet with your approval, centurions, and solve the problem. You’ll understand that errors sometimes occur, but that’s soon amended. I’ll have to discipline that blasted clerk, issuing such shoddy gear to an officer.’
He reached a hand out to take the bundle of rejected kit, only to find Marcus’s hand there first, closing over his podgy fingers in a firm grip. Rufius leant on the counter, resting his chin on a bunched fist, a half-smile playing on his lips, his eyes boring into Annius’s. Behind them, Antenoch lounged against the wall, pointedly studying his fingernails for dirt, while Dubnus prowled around the room, casting dark glances at the stores officer. The younger man spoke again, his voice quiet and yet shot through with steel.
‘If only it were that simple. You see, when I discovered the poor quality of my own equipment issue, I was prompted to check on the welfare of my men. You’ll be as surprised as I was to learn that I found many of them apparently undernourished. Their food is both insufficient and of a disgusting quality, and has been so, I’m told, since Soldier Trajan was appointed temporary centurion several months ago. Interestingly, when my chosen man offered to take Trajan out over the Wall for a short patrol into the forest last evening, he insisted that this purse of gold be a contribution to the century’s funeral club.’
He released the other man’s hand, pulling a leather bag from his tunic and spilling its contents carelessly across the counter, watching the fear grow in the other man’s eyes. The coins rattled on to the wood, each spinning gold disc reflecting tiny flickers of yellow light as it sank into stillness across the flat surface. A long silence stretched out, as both men stared at the small fortune lying across the counter.
‘Apparently, he wanted to make amends for his previous greed. It seems he was foolish enough to have participated in a scheme to make money by supplying his men with substandard rations, and sharing the profits with somebody in your department…’
Annius shifted uncomfortably, opening his mouth to deny any knowledge.
‘I…’
‘No, don’t tell me, you don’t want to incriminate any of your staff. We understand completely, any good officer would wish to protect his men from bad fortune, even that of being caught committing a capital offence. Of course, if I were to discover the identity of that person, I’d have them in front of the First Spear the same hour, and see them pay the maximum penalty possible. Don’t you agree, Chosen Man?’
Dubnus spoke over his shoulder while he leaned over the counter to examine a mail shirt hanging from a rack close to the wide desk, fingering the leather jerkin to which the rings were fastened.
‘No, it’d be too quick just to have his head lopped off. I’d take him into the great forest, give him a one- hundred-count start and then hunt him down through the shadows. I’d pin him to a tree with my throwing axe and leave him there to die.’
Annius looked from Marcus to his men, realising with horror the game they were playing with him, not doubting for a second any of the commitment behind their words.
‘That’s still too good,’ came a voice from behind them. ‘I’d just break the bastard’s arms and legs and leave him out there for the animals. The wild pigs would make a mess of him before he finally died.’
Antenoch flipped the heavy axe handle as he spoke, juggling the three-foot length of wood with impressive nonchalance as he shot a hard stare at the stores officer. Annius had heard about the way the young officer had turned the man’s rage to his own advantage on the parade ground, and suspected that he had a good deal of frustration to unleash upon the first convenient target. He looked away, attempting to feign an indifference that he was far from feeling.
The young officer smiled down at him without mirth, his jaw set hard.
‘So you see feelings are running high. Soldier Trajan is already feeling the wrath of his former subordinates by all accounts, although I suspect that a protracted revenge holds more savour for the troops than anything hasty. Of course, he was only the dupe of your man, from the relatively small amount of money he handed over to us…’
An opening?
‘I could… pay you… to keep my clerk out of trouble?’
The four men stared at him in silence, waiting. He plunged on.
‘I could take the man’s profits, give them to you, for use in making amends with your unit, of course. Gods, the fool might have made as much as five hundred from his ill-advised swindle…’
Rufius leant across the counter, putting his face close to Annius’s.
‘Three thousand. Now. You can reclaim the money from your man at your leisure.’
Annius stared at the officer aghast. That was almost twice as much as they’d actually raked off…
