‘I asked for the posting. My father told me that the emperor wanted to send a young man of the equestrian class to serve with the Northern Command, to provide him with a first-hand description of the country and its people…’
A thinly disguised reference to his role as an imperial spy which, Equitius sensed, was deliberately sufficiently implausible as to make the real purpose quite apparent.
‘Hearing this, I persuaded him to present me to Commodus, and to make the case for my taking the role. The emperor asked me what I would do in the case of my discovering treachery at any level of the army. Even that of a legionary legatus.’
And he paused again, letting the silence drag out.
‘I told him that I would quite cheerfully condemn the traitor to a public and agonising death, as a lesson to any others of the same mind. It seemed to hit the right note…’
Equitius would have bet it did. Commodus’s reputation for insecurity and bloody overcompensation was already well established. Perennis turned in this saddle, looking back at him.
‘I expect you would have said exactly the same.’
Equitius met his eye, suddenly frightened for the first time in several years, hiding his fear behind a slow smile.
‘I expect I would.’
Thirty yards ahead of them, and without warning, half a dozen armoured men stepped from the undergrowth, their spears ready to throw. It was, now he thought about it, perfect country to defend. If a column of attackers were surprised on the path they would be bottled up like rats in a lead drainpipe. He glanced to one side, and saw armoured men moving through the woods, closing the trap. The centurion on the path ahead demanded the password, and waited to receive it from Perennis without a change of expression.
Password given and accepted, Equitius looked down at the men as they rode past, grim-faced veterans who looked up at him with the disdain to which he’d become accustomed as an auxiliary officer. Regulars, as convinced of their superiority over any other fighting man as they were that the sun would rise the next day. Proud, and nasty with it, habitually taking no prisoners and expecting no quarter. Where a captured auxiliary would be slaughtered without compunction, as a traitor to his own people, a legionary would be saved for more exquisite treatment, to be exacted at leisure if possible. To the tribes they were not simply soldiers of the hated oppressor, but enemy citizens, or as good as, and both feared and hated in greater proportions accordingly.
A mile down the track they broke out into the open, a clearing in the forest greatly enlarged by the legionaries’ labour in felling trees, the fallen trunks stripped of their branches and converted into a rough log palisade around the temporary camp’s perimeter. Their branches had been hacked into thousands of stakes and set outside the wall at angles that would impale a careless night attacker. Tents mushroomed across the open space inside the fence, enough for a full legion at eight men to a tent, men still working at strengthening the camp’s defences. Equitius smiled, remembering the old adage – give a legion open ground for a night and you got a field camp surrounded by an earthwork four feet high. A week, and they would pillage the surrounding land for the materials to build a full-blown fort. A month, and the officers’ mess would look as if it had been there for a year.
The small party passed through the open gateway, making their way to the camp’s centre, where the command tents rose above the lower troop and officer versions. Sollemnis met them at the door of his headquarters tent, accepting Perennis’s salute with appropriate gravity before clasping Equitius’s arm in a warm greeting.
‘My good friend, it’s been almost a year!’
Equitius nodded soberly, glancing significantly at the tent.
‘And now we meet in a time of war, with little time for talk.’
‘But talk we must. Perennis, I would invite you to share our discussion, but you probably have duties to attend to?’
The tribune nodded.
‘Indeed, sir. I thought I might take a squadron of the Asturians to the west, and make sure that the barbarians haven’t slipped away from the Petriana.’
Sollemnis waved a hand absently.
‘Very good. Regular dispatches, mind you. I want to know where you are when we move.’
He turned away, gesturing Equitius into the command tent, past the hard-bitten legionaries guarding its flap.
‘A drink?’
An orderly came forward with a tray, pouring them both a cup of wine, and then withdrew, leaving the two men alone. Sollemnis gestured to the couch.
‘Please, my friend, sit down, you must be tired after a day in the saddle. Now, firstly, tell me what you think about my tribune.’
‘Freely?’
‘Of course. You’re not overheard, and you and I are old friends. Your opinions have always been important to me, never more so than now. So, tell me what you think.’
Equitius weighed his words.
‘On one level he seems the most complete soldier. Was this location really his idea?’
‘Oh yes, he spent most of last summer cataloguing the ground. He has a sound grasp of tactics, and an understanding of war fighting and strategy that puts men twice his age to shame. And on the other level?’
‘He’s… dangerous. Do you trust him?’
‘Trust his abilities? Absolutely. You’ll have heard the stories about our great victory over the Twentieth in last autumn’s manoeuvres? That was our Perennis, using the Asturians to scout a way around their flank patrols and bring us down on their supply train like wolves on the flock while the shepherd was away. The senior centurions recognise a kindred spirit, and they worship the ground he walks on. Trust the man? Not likely! He was imposed on me by the governor and on him by the emperor, for the purpose of ensuring my loyalty, but for a young man his ambition burns exceedingly brightly. Too brightly for my liking, I’m afraid. His father’s influence, I suppose.’
‘So why tolerate him?’
‘I refer you back to my first answer. His skills will be invaluable to the legion in this campaign, after which I’ll send him back to Rome as a hero to report our victory, and recommended to take command of a legion of his own, with promotion to senatorial rank. In the meantime I’ll do everything possible to keep our secret from him. Now, I believe another young man’s been making something of a reputation for himself in the last week?’
Equitius smiled wryly.
‘Yes. His adoptive father did too good a job of the boy’s training, turned him into a bloody assassin. We paired him with an experienced chosen man, in the hope that he’d temper the boy’s lack of experience, instead of which they went storming around the countryside at the first opportunity, burning out Calgus’s supplies and taking on his cavalry at suicidal odds. But for old Licinius you’d have no son now.’
‘Licinius. Gods! How long did it take that old bastard to see through the matter?’
‘He didn’t have to. He asked me for the truth and I gave it to him. You lie to that man at your peril.’
‘Hmm. And his verdict was…?’
‘That the boy’s too good a soldier to throw away. If the emperor’s men discover him, Licinius will of course disown the pair of us as traitors.’
‘So we’re not discovered… yet.’
The legatus blew a long breath out.
‘You have my thanks for your risk. I’ll find a way to make amends once this is all dealt with. The Twentieth comes up for command rotation early next year. My recommendation will be for you to take the rank of legatus… not that the position is guaranteed to be in my gift. I never quite understood why it was that you didn’t get command of the Twenty-second Primigenia in Germania. You were senior tribune, after all…’
‘The legatus and I didn’t entirely see eye to eye. He thought it was appropriate for the senior officers to benefit from a variety of incautious frauds against official funds. I didn’t. I was caught between two fires – I either informed on him and earned a reputation as a toady, or ignored the situation and paid the price with the rest of them when they were found out. I managed to get the appropriate information to the governor, but I didn’t want promotion into the shoes of a man I’d effectively condemned to death, so I asked him to send me to Britannia instead. Being appointed to an auxiliary cohort was the closest thing to a promotion I could have expected under
