new commanding officer.
‘I know that you will be wondering how I can order such a punishment. I know that it is more usual for the crime of murder to meet with death by beating with staves, to be administered by the killer’s tent party, but this man will meet his fate like the criminal scum that he is.’ He paused for a moment, jaw jutting, and stared out across the cohort’s ranks in challenge. ‘He will be guarded tonight by his own century. If he dies before the time I have appointed for him, or escapes in some amazing and unexpected manner, I will have that century’s officer, chosen man and watch officer crucified in his place, and the rest of his century decimated, not once but three times. Thirty men will die tomorrow if this man fails to make his appointment with the hammer and nails for any reason.’
He turned to First Spear Neuto, inclining his head to indicate that the senior centurion should carry on, and then turned and walked back to his tent, the bloody gladius still held in his right hand.
Centurion Tertius turned to the first spear in amazement once the prefect was safely out of earshot. ‘Crucifixion? First Spear, in Maponus’s name…’
Neuto snapped at him, his tired face contorted with anger. ‘Don’t you dare bring shame on this cohort by appealing to the gods for the life of a senior officer’s murderer, you fool! You told me you had no idea who killed Bassus, and I’ll continue to believe that since you swore an oath, but that man dies tomorrow and that’s an end to it.’ He rubbed a hand over his face. ‘In the meanwhile you can work off that bitterness by getting your man nicely secured against any unforeseen accidents. I expect you’ll find your chosen man and watch officer more than happy to make sure nothing remiss happens to him. Then you can build me a cross. You’ll find plenty of wood and nails in the remains of the fort. More importantly, we’ll need something to hold your man upright tomorrow while he’s being flogged.’
Tertius frowned, puzzlement written across his face. ‘Upright? All the scourgings I’ve seen have only needed one thick post. You bend the victim over it and tie his hands and feet to keep him there while he’s having his back opened up.’
The first spear rolled his eyes upwards. ‘Yes. I know. And this one’s going to be different. I want that idiot to be held upright while we’re flogging him to death, if you take my point. So I want two posts set in the ground, tall enough to hold him up and wide enough to stretch him out standing up with ropes tied around his wrists. You can angle them forward just a little too; make sure he’ll stay up even if he loses it halfway through. Angle them away from the parade ground, mind you. Dismissed.’
It was close to midnight before Tertius was done with his preparations for the next day. Labouring by torchlight, his men had set up two stout posts to hold the prisoner up during his ordeal the following day. Alongside the whipping posts they had erected a simple rough cross formed from two scorched wooden beams, one nailed horizontally across the top of the other once it had been sunk deep into the soil that underlaid the parade ground’s thick gravel. Dismissing his work party to wash and find their beds, he walked exhaustedly to the tent inside which the century’s watch officer sat patiently, showing no sign of weariness. ‘I’ll watch him for an hour. Go and get a wash and a bite to eat, he’s not going anywhere.’
The man nodded his respect, his backward glances at the prisoner expressing with perfect eloquence what military discipline forbade him to say out loud.
The prisoner smirked at Tertius across the tent. ‘That’ll be him shitting roof tiles for the next hour. I’d bet you every denarius I have he’ll go no farther than behind the nearest tent, if I hadn’t already spent the lot on the Noisy Valley whores. That and if I weren’t going to be flogged to ribbons and then nailed to a plank for the entertainment of the cohort in the morning.’
Tertius shook his head sadly. ‘I could find it in my head to feel sorrow for you, brother, if only you had any idea why you speared the prefect. You didn’t really know at the time, I seem to recall, and you still haven’t got a clue today, do you?’
The condemned man shrugged under the heavy ropes securing him to the tent post. ‘Not really. He was there, shouting the fucking odds, I had the spear… you know how it is…’
Tertius shook his head again. ‘No, I really don’t. Mother always wondered how on earth she produced two boys so very different…’
‘I know. Just look at the state of you.’
Tertius laughed quietly, despite himself. ‘You’re going to die in horrible pain tomorrow, Secundus. Doesn’t that dent your humour just a little?’
The other man shook his head. ‘It’ll be over soon enough, and I’ll be on the other side of the river. So fuck ’em all.’ He sized his brother up with an appraising glance. ‘You’ve come to say goodbye.
Consider it said. You’ve come to ask me if I’ll take our secret with me to the grave. I will. You’ve done well for yourself, young ’un, better than I ever reckoned you would, you little bastard. Make an offering for me whenever there’s an altar to Bacchus handy, there’s a good lad.’
The centurion looked up, his eyes wet with tears. ‘I didn’t come to ask you to protect me. I came to tell you that I’ll have revenge for you. You’ve earned a death sentence right enough, but not this way, not like a bloody barbarian slave. That bastard’s got it coming, and I’ll take his blood for doing this.’
His brother laughed without mirth, nodding approval. ‘I expect you will, you’ve done everything else you ever set your mind to. Just don’t end up tied to a tent post and waiting to be nailed up after you’ve done it. Now dry your eyes and share one last smile with me. You don’t want to be caught crying over vermin like me.’ He waited while the centurion wiped his eyes and face with the hem of his tunic. ‘Now, before anyone else turns up, let’s get one more thing agreed, eh?’
Tertius tilted his head in question. ‘What?’
‘Tomorrow. When the prefect hands the scourge round to the officers and invites you all to do your bit for military justice…?’
The centurion took a long breath, composing himself. ‘What?’
‘Lay it on me like you’ve got a pair of swingers the size of apples, eh? No good my taking our little secret with me to the grave if you can’t do your bit.’
Furius was relaxing in his tent with a beaker of wine when the tent flap opened and a centurion stepped through the gap, coming smartly to attention in front of the astonished Furius.
‘What the bloody…’
‘Centurion Appius reporting, Prefect.’
The prefect stared at the centurion, recognising him as one of the two officers sent to escort him from Arab Town to join the cohort.
‘So it is. Is it usual in this cohort, Centurion, for individual officers to make their entrance to the prefect’s tent late in the evening, and without any formal request relayed via their first spear?’
Appius shook his head, still staring straight ahead at the tent’s far wall but without any of the nervousness that the prefect would have expected his admonishment to provoke in the man.
‘No, sir. I am, however, responding to your request of a few days ago.’
‘My request…?’
‘Yes, sir. Back in the guest house in Arab Town, you told us that any man that could point you at the fugitive that’s reputed to be in hiding with one of the wall cohorts would be well rewarded.’
Furius smiled slowly.
‘Indeed I did, Centurion…’
‘Appius, sir.’
‘Indeed I did, Appius. So what do you have for me?’
‘There’s a young lad serving as an officer with our sister cohort. Myself and Centurion Tertius met him in the Arab Town mess, before we came to meet you. He looks very…’
‘Roman?’
‘Yes sir, dark hair, brown eyes, and darker skin than we usually get round here unless the men have been shipped in from a lot farther south. On top of which he wears a sword with an eagle’s head as pretty as anything I’ve ever seen, beautifully engraved.’
He had meant to mention the cloak pin whose inscription he’d read at Arab Town, but the sceptical look on the prefect’s face changed his mind.
‘And you think he’s the missing man, eh? Just because his eyes are brown and he has a nice sword?’
Again Appius didn’t flinch from the harsh words.
