as instructed by the governor, giving my men a chance to deal with him on the road. Someone, whether with the legatus’s blessing or not, killed a cavalry decurion and two of his men sent to deal with the traitor. Worse, they tortured the decurion for information while he lay dying and then escaped into the open country, almost certainly with the traitor in tow. After which disappointing events nothing was heard of either the outlaw or whoever aided him. Until, perhaps, now…’
He turned away, pacing down the tent’s length before turning back and speaking again.
‘The decurion they killed was a respected man in these parts, first in line for promotion to first spear with the Asturians. Who, you might have heard, have sworn to a man to have their revenge on the killer, whenever and wherever the chance arises. This man…’ He gestured to the officer filling the tent’s doorway. ‘… has a particular interest in taking the killer’s blood, since the man was his older brother. Now, a contact of mine within the fort tells me that you have information on the subject which I might find useful. He recommended I speak with you with all dispatch.’
He paced back to the terrified storekeeper, staring into his eyes.
‘Now, you are, at this moment, weighing up whether to tell me the truth or not. Let’s face it, I’m here tonight and gone in the morning, while your First Spear will always be there, and eager for revenge if he thinks you’ve betrayed him in such a way.’
He turned to the decurion and nodded. A pale sword slid from its scabbard, the edge winking in the lamplight.
‘The decurion here, however, is another matter. He wants revenge on this traitor, and whoever helped him, and he’ll be very upset indeed if he feels that you’re obstructing his path to justice. So, storeman, your choices are simple – tell me everything you know, here and now, without hiding anything, or they’ll find you face down in the river with a rather nasty hole in your back. It’s really up to you…’
Annius opened his mouth and started talking. Marcus read quietly through the evening, submerging himself in Caesar’s two-hundred-year-old account of his subjugation of Gaul until the shadows lengthened, and the orderly came to light his lamp. After a while straining to make out the characters in the half-darkness became too much of an effort and he rolled up the scroll and slid beneath the blanket, blowing the lamp out to leave the room in darkness. Hovering above sleep’s dark waters, his mind easing down to rest, he thought for a second that he felt a gentle touch on his face, soft enough not to pull him back from the brink of rest, enough to hold him there in a state of uncertain thrill.
The touch came again, and a soft voice spoke soothingly to him as a warm body slipped under the blanket beside him. His body trembled slightly with the sudden realisation, as hands caressed his back and neck, lips finding his ear and gently kissing away the fear. He rolled over to meet her kiss with his own, still stunned at the situation, pausing for breath after a long moment.
‘It would seem that I owe my clerk an apology.’
Felicia renewed the kiss wordlessly, moving her body over his beneath the blanket’s rough folds. Felicia left Marcus’s bed in the early hours, abandoning him to an exhausted, dreamless sleep. He woke long after dawn to the orderly’s persistent shaking of his shoulder.
‘Centurion, there’s a messenger from your cohort waiting outside. Clodia Drusilla grants you her permission to leave the hospital, and has asked me to give you this…’
He directed a significant look towards Marcus, making it quite clear that he could guess at the tablet’s contents. As he left one of Marcus’s men came through the door with a bundle of clothing and equipment tied up in what Marcus quickly recognised as his cloak.
‘Sir, First Spear’s regards, an’ he requests you to rejoin the cohort on the way to the North Road. The horse boys found the barbarians yesterday, an’ we’re moving to attack them…’
Marcus dressed quickly, shoving the tablet into a pocket and grabbing a piece of bread from the breakfast table as he followed the soldier out of the infirmary’s quiet corridors and into the fort’s orderly hubbub. The rest of the man’s tent party were waiting impatiently at the door, their leader saluting smartly at his appearance among them.
‘Morning, sir, good to see you looking better. I hope you’re up to a run this morning, the cohort marched out at the double almost half an hour ago, along with the Second and the Batavians.’
Marcus nodded grimly, tightening his new helmet’s strap until the leather bit into his chin, ignoring the pressure on his still-sensitive scalp, while the men checked that their packs were secure on their carrying poles before hoisting them on to their shoulders along with their spears. A shouted command set them running, a steady trot to which, Marcus was pleased to discover, his body adjusted after only a moment’s protest. Five minutes took them across the fort’s bridge and out of view of the fort, passing through wooded copses and open fields as they climbed the steep hill to the east of the river. Despite the road’s arrow-straight line, Marcus kept a hand on his sword’s hilt, aware that a roving barbarian scouting party would see an officer and eight men as fair game.
Half an hour’s running brought no sight of the cohort, confirmation of Marcus’s mental arithmetic. He had guessed that it would take the best part of another hour to catch the Tungrians, and so it proved, the black snake of men appearing on the horizon as they ran into sight of the crossroads with the North Road.
The tail-end century of the rearmost cohort was clearing the crossroads and heading out through the wall’s open gates as the nine men ran up to it, Marcus recognising their companion unit, the Second Tungrians, with a sudden guilty start. They moved to the verge, padding past the marching soldiers without breaking their pace and ignoring the barrage of catcalls and insults that followed their progress up the line of centuries. At the column’s head Marcus recognised his own cohort, and quickened his pace in response. A voice rang out from behind him, peremptory in its authority.
‘You there! Centurion! A moment!’
He signalled his men to rejoin their colleagues, and then turned reluctantly to face the speaker, walking backwards to keep pace with the column’s leading rank. An officer marched forward from his place alongside the column’s head, extending a hand in greeting. Marcus saluted before taking the offered hand, turning to walk alongside the other man.
‘Quintus Dexter Bassus, prefect, Second Tungrian Cohort. And you, I presume from the look of you, are the First Cohort’s illustrious young cattle-burning centurion?’
Marcus drew on his praetorian etiquette training, recalling his instruction on how best to maintain a respectful posture while escorting a walking dignitary, and turned his torso towards the prefect, nodding his head slightly.
‘Yes, sir…’
He took a deep breath, thinking quickly.
‘… Centurion Two Knives. I prefer to fight with two swords when possible, and the title seems to have stuck.’
‘I’ve heard it… a soldier’s name if ever I heard one. Is there a name that you can share with me?’
‘With pleasure, Prefect. My family name is Corvus.’
‘Well, Centurion Corvus, I can only offer you my inadequate but heartfelt thanks for your rescue of my wife…’
They walked in silence for a moment, the massed rattle on the road of hobnailed boots and the jingle and rattle of harnesses and equipment filling what would otherwise have been an uncomfortable gap in the conversation.
‘The thanks, Prefect, would more appropriately be offered to my century, but nevertheless I am happy to acknowledge them, and to express my pleasure that we were in the right place at the right time.’
The other man pursed his lips, perhaps, Marcus thought, caught between the need to show gratitude for the act and a curiosity as to what Felicia might have said to him during the their time together.
‘You’re too modest, young man. The whole army is talking about the way your century denied the barbarians their supplies, and I owe you a debt of thanks I cannot easily discharge. The gods only know what indignities your fortunate arrival spared my wife.’
‘Prefect, you may be aware that I sustained a head injury during a night patrol two days ago. Your wife was good enough to administer her medical skills to my wound, greatly assisting my recovery. Any debt is thus well repaid.’
The other man stared at him for a moment.
‘A noble sentiment, and more typically Roman than I’m used to from the local officers. I find it refreshing to
