‘Centurion…?’
‘Valerius Aquila.’
The response was automatic, the word hanging in the air between them as her eyebrows rose with interest, visible in dawn’s first light.
‘A famous name in my childhood. Your family are a powerful force in Rome.’
‘No more, lady, it seems. You’re a native Roman?’
‘Until I was thirteen, and my father was posted to the Wall. So how does the son of a famous family come to be an auxiliary officer, rather than choosing to serve with the legions…’
Her voice came to a stop as his response sank in. Marcus bent closer, whispering in her ear.
‘I’d be grateful if we spoke no more of my former status until we have the privacy for a frank conversation.’
‘I see. But I…’
A soldier ran up to them, his armour crusted with blood, saluting respectfully with more than half an eye on the woman’s body.
‘Centurion, the chosen says to tell you that the cull’s finished. We’re ready to burn them.’
Her eyes ignited with fury, scalding Marcus with their sudden flare of anger.
‘Not the oxen. Tell me it isn’t the oxen!’
He marched stony faced back up the hill, the woman running at his shoulder. When she saw the lifeless humps of flesh littering the mist-wreathed ground her anger was kindled anew. She rounded on Marcus with a snarl that made the soldiers closest to her step back involuntarily, their minds jerked back to distant memories of angry mothers.
‘You bastards! Every one of those cattle represented life or death to a crofting family, and you’ve slaughtered them without a second thought.’
Dubnus stepped forward, interposing himself between them before Antenoch had a chance to take umbrage.
‘These cattle were either taken or purchased from the crofters to feed a barbarian warband. Either way, we’re denying food to the enemy.’
He turned away, accepting a torch from one of the soldiers sadly staring at the scene.
‘Pour on the pitch!’
A dozen men hefted heavy jars, pulling their stoppers and pouring the sticky, viscous pitch, half liquid, half solid, over the dead animals, then repeated the act with fresh jars, until the pungent aroma spread across the field. More men stepped up with further jars, pouring until the fumes made Marcus’s eyes sting and water. Dubnus stepped up to the nearest corpse, muttering a swift prayer under his breath as he lowered his torch to the dead animal’s sticky fur. The pitch smoked for a long moment before catching fire, the flames slowly spreading across the pile of dead animals. The flames sent a pungent scent of roasting hair to assault their nostrils, the 9th’s soldiers standing in reverential silence at the destruction of such great wealth. Smoke from the burning beasts created an artificial fog to replace that burnt away by the heat, making the men cough, and cover their faces with their sweat rags. The century watched the growing blaze for a few moments more, every man taking a drink of beer from jars found in the farmhouse as reward for their efforts with a prim-looking Cyclops posted to ensure that nobody drank more than would be prudent so far into unfriendly country. Once everyone had taken their share, and several had been turned away with bristling indignation by the beer’s custodian, Marcus shook himself from his tired reverie.
‘Time we weren’t here. Century, form ranks for the march!’
Men ran to assume formation, transforming chaos into ordered ranks with a practised ease, half a dozen men holding the halters of ponies taken from the farm’s enclosure. Marcus turned to the woman, his smile tight lipped with fatigue and residual anger at her outburst.
‘Well, ma’am, would you care to ride or walk?’
She glared at him, then stalked away and mounted one of the ponies.
‘Ninth Century, at the quick march… march!’
They moved quickly down to the farm. The flour intended for loaves to feed the oncoming warband had been stacked in the farm’s main room, and doused with more jars of the aromatic amber pine pitch, ready for burning. Dubnus tossed a torch in through the door with a sad smile, then led them back up the hill on the far side in grim silence. At the crest he halted them temporarily, turning them to look back into the valley as the first rays of the rising sun lit the hilltops around them. The reek from the burning oxen and the newly fired farmhouse was rising in a thick dark column that would be visible for twenty miles. If there were a warband heading for the farm, its leader would shortly be doubling his efforts to reach the scene, and probably throwing whatever he had by way of mounted scouts forward at their best speed to investigate the reason for the fire. Marcus turned to face his men.
‘Ninth Century, this is a major victory. There’s almost certainly a large enemy warband within a day or two’s march of this place, probably marching in the expectation of replenishing their supplies in preparation for an attack on the Wall. Perhaps even on the Hill… What they will find, thanks to us, is their meat destroyed, the pitch for their torches burned and their flour gone up in flames with it. Unless they have an alternative source of supply, their leader will be forced to fall back on more friendly territory in search of food.
‘Now…’
He paused for effect, aware that every eye was locked on him, their sensitivities about the destruction of so many fine oxen forgotten. The responsibility of bringing the century back to its parent unit intact weighed him down for a moment.
‘… now we have to think of ourselves. There might well be scouts heading for the farm even as we speak, quite possibly in numbers that would overwhelm us on open ground. My intention is that we should make a forced march for the Wall, and get it between us and any potential threat.’
He grinned at them wolfishly.
‘Now’s the time that we get some return on all that training. We’ll eat breakfast once we’re back on the civilised side of the Wall. We move in two minutes, so make fast and get ready to run.’
The soldiers set to work, tightening fastenings and making sure that their boots were secure. Once the century was on the move, any man who dropped an item, or whose footwear loosened, would be forced to drop out, then run twice as hard to catch up again. He pulled Dubnus to one side, speaking quietly in his ear.
‘We need to know what happens here in the next couple of hours. Choose a good distance runner, share his kit out and have him find a sheltered spot to watch the fire. He waits until mid-morning, then pulls out and follows us back to the Wall.’
The chosen nodded silently, walking away into the century’s activity. The morning air was a cool relief as the 9th jogged towards the Wall; it was too early for the sun to be uncomfortable. Looking back, even ten miles from the farm, Marcus was amazed at the size of the pillar of smoke that rose into the heavens, shearing suddenly to the west where it met a high air current thousands of feet above the ground. He smiled wryly at the probable effect of the sign on his own side of the Wall, and what it might be mistaken for. At least he could expect to meet friendly faces once the 9th had crossed the border. Scout units would in all likelihood be racing for the spot from both east and west.
They reached their original crossing point at mid-morning, and set up a temporary camp on the southern side of the Wall. Marcus gave the command for field rations to be opened, and luxuriated in dried meat and the last of the previous day’s bread issue, with a little pickle from a jar that Antenoch had slipped into his pack. Climbing the rampart to survey the ground to their north, he saw that the pillar of smoke was lightening, the fire presumably having consumed the farm buildings. Its top stretched, a dirty stain in the clear blue sky, for a dozen miles or so to the west, slowly dispersing in the gentle winds. The ground in front of the Wall climbed gently for a few hundred years before falling away towards a distant line of trees. From the ground on that slope, he mused, it would be impossible to see the Wall.
He made his way back to the ground, and walked over to where the woman was taking a solitary breakfast, still guarded by the same soldiers who had shared her vigil over the dying man at dawn. Dismissing the men, Marcus squatted on to his haunches when she showed no sign of standing to meet him. Her face, seen for the first time in the daylight, bore the marks of a heavy beating within the past week, bruises past their first lividity still evident as shadows on her cheekbones and jawline.
‘Ma’am, we’ve had no formal introduction…’
