‘At the moment that means little enough to you. I’m just another officer spouting off about his cohort. But you will learn what it means to be one of us. And when you understand that, you will be one step closer to reaching the standards we will be expecting of you. Now, make ready to move. We’re marching to Noisy Valley, and that’s a marching distance of twenty-six miles, which at four miles an hour will take us about eight hours including rest stops. Easy enough work for a fully fit soldier carrying the light equipment you’ve been issued with. This is our first chance to see how you men measure up to our standards.’
Prefect Furius rode into The Rock’s temporary camp in the middle of the afternoon with three centuries of soldiers marching easily at his back. Forewarned by a tent party of men sent running ahead for the last mile by Centurion Tertius, the cohort’s first spear was waiting at the camp’s entrance with his officers, ready to formally greet their new commander. He bellowed an order as the prefect’s horse drew level with their small group, snapping the cohort’s officers to attention. Furius dismounted, and a soldier assigned to the task ran forward and led the horse away.
The prefect looked about him, taking in the stone shell of the burned-out fort huddled under the wall’s unbroken defence. The turf-walled camp alongside it was a picture of order, the lines of tents perfectly aligned and the men set to guard the turf walls alert and crisp in their movements. Finding nothing to excite comment, he turned to address the gathered officers.
‘First Spear…?’
‘Neuto, sir.’
‘A local name, First Spear?’
‘A Tungrian name, Prefect. I was born in Gallia Belgica.’
Furius nodded.
‘I rode through your capital, Tungrorum, on my way here. You must miss it.’
The first spear inclined his head.
‘I do, sir, although it’s a very long time since I saw the old place.’
‘There are some men behind me who have seen your settlement somewhat more recently. I have reinforcements for you from Tungria, a full century of freshly trained men.’
The first spear smiled thinly.
‘So I see, Prefect. I must admit that I wasn’t expecting such a welcome addition to our strength. Reinforcements have been hard to come by with six full legion cohorts needing replacement.’
The prefect smiled broadly, either ignoring or simply missing the slightly disapproving note in his senior centurion’s voice, and spread his hands like a conjuror soliciting applause for his latest trick.
‘Then it’s a good thing for our cohort that I happened to be in the right place at the right time and with the right, ah… influence, shall we say? I suggest that we get these three centuries into quarters, and you and I can have a discussion as to how we’re going to demonstrate some old-fashioned Roman military justice to this cohort. There’s an officer-killer at large in this cohort, and we’re going to find him and make him pay for his crime with his blood.’
He smiled into Neuto’s suddenly expressionless face before turning to the men unloading his effects from the wagon behind them.
‘And now, let’s get my kit off that wagon and safely into my tent, shall we? Be careful with that jar, it contains enough naphtha to burn down a legion fortress!’
The Tungrians reached Noisy Valley shortly before dark that evening. Passing The Rock an hour before, Julius had shot a hard scowl at the smirking 2nd Tungrian soldiers standing guard at the entrance to their earth-walled marching camp. Pausing for a moment to allow Tiberius Rufius to catch up with him, he’d tipped his helmeted head to the 2nd Cohort men, his face sour with disgust.
‘Look at those smug bastards. There’s nothing those thieving arse bandits like better than to get one over on us, and there they are with a century that belongs to us happily camped fifty paces the other side of their turf wall.’ He spat on the ground, his face hardening as the sentries nudged each other, clearly barely restraining themselves from hysterics as the Hamians hove into view. ‘I’ll fucking…’
Rufius restrained him with a hand on his arm, shaking his head in gentle admonishment.
‘You’ll only regret it. Their first spear will be forced to send you packing, and from what I’ve heard he’s a good enough sort. And his prefect will probably send a complaint to Frontinius and make it all our fault…’
Julius shrugged off the older man’s hand, but to the veteran centurion’s relief simply stood and stared at the sentries until they decided that discretion was the better part of valour in the face of his obvious anger and slunk off behind the section of turf wall that masked the fort’s entrance. Marcus strode past alongside his struggling men, a jaundiced glance at the fort’s walls the only sign of his disgust.
‘See, young Marcus has it right. Save your anger for a time when it can be put to good use.’
The big man grunted, shaking his head as he turned back to the march.
‘I’ll have blood for this. Just not today…’
The 6th Legion’s temporary headquarters was a sea of tents clustered around the partially rebuilt ruins of the northern command’s Noisy Valley supply depot. Rufius, having strolled back down the marching column to walk a while with Marcus and Qadir, wrinkled his nose. ‘This place still stinks of burnt wood, even now they’ve cleared away most of the wreckage. At least the Sixth is getting on with putting it back to the way it was.’
Despite the hour, the warm late summer air was filled with the sounds of hammering and sawing, as the legion’s troops laboured to restore the camp to its former magnificence from the burned-out shells of armouries and supply sheds torched to prevent their being looted by the triumphant barbarians three months before. The wooden bridge at the foot of the quarter-mile slope from the camp to the river had already been completely rebuilt, and the valley’s slopes on both sides of the fast-flowing River Tinea had been stripped of most of their remaining trees to supply wood for the reconstruction. The result was a bare landscape studded with tree stumps, their removal a low priority compared with the work of reconstruction, and across which half a dozen bonfires etched their sooty stains into the late afternoon sky as conscripted Brigantian labour collected and burned the unwanted debris left behind after the trees had been felled and cut up into usable sections by the legions’ artisans. Marcus nodded distractedly, his attention focused on his men. The replacement Tungrians marching in front of them under Dubnus’s command, accustomed to marching from their recent training, were still relatively fresh. By contrast, most of his Hamians looked fit to drop. They had taken almost all of the day to cover the distance from Arab Town, and the centurions’ faces had grown darker by the hour as the archers struggled to maintain even the standard marching pace.
‘Their feet must be as soft as babies’ arses. Look, that poor bastard’s got blood leaking out of his boots.’ Julius pointed to a man in the front rank as they paraded the replacements on the Noisy Valley parade ground. Both of the archer’s feet were visibly bleeding, the raw flesh visible between his boots’ leather straps. ‘This lot are going to need some serious sorting out before they can get back on the road. You go and chat up the legatus for any equipment he can spare; I’ll get them into quarters and boots off.’
Marcus nodded unhappily, ordering Qadir to stay with his men and follow Julius’s instructions. He presented himself in front of the rebuilt headquarters, one of the few buildings already completed by the repair gangs, greeting the duty centurion with the appropriate degree of respect the man would consider his due from an auxiliary centurion.
‘Centurion Corvus of the First Tungrian cohort, requesting an audience with Legatus Equitius.’
The legion officer leaned forward to put his face a foot from the younger man’s, and stared down his nose disdainfully, his jaw jutting out between his helmet’s gleaming cheek pieces.
‘Requesting an audience with the legatus? And what makes you think the commander of Sixth Victorious has any time for you?’
Retaining his cool, Marcus returned the hostile stare with a calm regard.
‘Mainly the fact that we stood together on a hillside quite recently, while a barbarian warband battered itself to pieces on our shields.’ His eyes narrowed slightly as he leaned forward in turn to put his face inches from the centurion’s. ‘Which cohort, Centurion?’
‘What?’
He repeated the question with deliberate and obvious patience.
‘In which one of the Sixth Legion’s cohorts do you serve, Centurion?’
The older man saw quickly enough which way the conversation was going, and his answer was a fraction less gruff.
‘The Second.’
