‘… and yet, I see that we are trapped in this terrible place. And so I will ally myself with you in using their methods to make my men fit to survive this coming journey into darkness.’
Marcus sighed audibly with relief.
‘Qadir, I…’
‘But there is a condition I must beg you to accept. Without it all is lost to these men, whether or not they become the soldiers you so crave them to be. I must insist that we find a way to give them time to practise with their bows each day.’
The young centurion nodded.
‘I was just about to get to that.’
The cohort mustered on the parade ground again after breakfast, each century’s tents, cooking gear and rations packed on to carts that would form part of the supply train, moving in the cohort’s centre on the march. As the 8th Century marched down the hill to their place on the parade ground, Morban’s usual place at their head was occupied by Antenoch, while the standard-bearer stood with his grandson Lupus at the fort’s gate, hopping from foot to foot in his impatience.
‘Where is the dozy old bag? The cohort will be leaving in a matter of minutes and I can’t leave you here alone. Perhaps that idiot boy didn’t deliver my message…’
A young woman came into view, running up the hill past the centuries making their way down to the parade ground. She saw the waiting standard-bearer and dashed up to him, breathlessly panting out her news. Morban listened for a moment, then left the weeping child in her company and hurried down to where Marcus stood in front of the 8th’s men.
‘Centurion, the boy’s grandmother…’
Marcus listened for a moment, told the standard-bearer to take his place at the century’s head and walked briskly to the first spear’s review platform.
‘Excuse me, First Spear.’
‘Centurion?’
‘We have a problem, sir. Morban’s grandson was to stay with his grandmother in one of the local villages, but we’ve just had word that she’s died overnight. There’s no other family to leave him with, and as the son of a soldier…’
He left the sentence unfinished. Both men knew that the boy would be fair game for the locals without his last direct family member to keep them at bay. The threat of massive reprisals would ensure that nobody local was stupid enough to take fire or iron against the fort in their absence, but the victimisation or even the murder and quiet disposal of a soldier’s child would be another matter entirely. Frontinius gave the matter less than a second’s thought.
‘Bring him with us to Noisy Valley. We’ll find someone there to look after him while we go hunting barbarians in the hills.’
Morban nodded in quiet relief, pointing to the wagon bearing the century’s equipment.
‘Get on that cart, lad, sit still and don’t touch anything. Thank you, Centurion, I couldn’t have left the poor little sod here on his own.’
Marcus nodded, his mind elsewhere as the leading century started marching up the hill that separated the fort from the military road that ran to the east and west behind the line of the wall.
‘We’ll take him as far as Noisy Valley and no farther. I’m not risking him getting mixed up in a full-scale battle, and in the meantime you’re responsible for his good behaviour. That means no wagering while he’s around you, and no whoring either. Not that I expect you’ll get much of a chance with several thousand legionaries ahead of you in the queue.’
The cohort arrived at the Noisy Valley fort late in the afternoon, and was directed into temporary defences thrown up alongside the partially rebuilt wooden fortress that dominated the main road to the north. They were camped alongside the 6th legion and several other cohorts from along the wall’s length. As the Hamians gratefully slumped to the ground for a short rest before pitching their eight-man tents, Morban slapped the 8th century’s trumpeter on the shoulder with his free hand.
‘No digging for us tonight, my lad. Let’s make a beeline for the vicus, or whatever the lazy bastards have rebuilt of it, see if we can’t find a wet to wash the dust from our throats.’
Marcus put out a hand to detain him.
‘Not so fast, Standard-bearer. First we need to make sure that our new troops get their tents pitched in such a way that the first gust of wind won’t blow them away. After that I want an hour’s practice with spears and shields, and after that they’ll need to have the evening campaign routine explained to them. All of which means that you’re going to be the busiest man in the century, and that’s before you spend whatever time’s necessary to look after your grandson.’
The 8th century exercised with their spears once their camp was set up, their efforts under the tuition of the four centurions watched with amusement by the rest of the cohort and with exasperation by the first spear, who called Marcus over to him after a few minutes standing in silence beside the exercise ground.
‘Utter rubbish. You’ll not get them slinging a spear straight in anything less than a month, and we’ll be in action inside a week. Take their spears off them, and find a way to get them motivated to learn which end of their swords does the damage. If that demonstration’s any guide we’ll have to dump them on the Hamian cohort as replacements.’
The century lined up to hand their spears in to the quartermaster with broad smiles, although their relief was soon forgotten in the face of Marcus’s grim-faced statement once they were back on the parade ground. Julius, Rufius and Dubnus stood behind him, their faces dark with anger at the implied criticism of their training methods, their harsh stares scouring the century’s suddenly solemn ranks for any sign of levity.
‘You’ve had your spears taken away because you were about as much use with them as a gang of vicus drunks. Some of you seem to regard that as a victory. Your officers, on the other hand, consider it something of a disgrace. Just to be clear, any attempt to provoke the removal of your swords and shields by means of such wilful underperformance will result instead in the loss of the only thing that seems to matter to you. If you fail to improve your collective performance with your remaining infantry weapons I will have no choice but to relieve you of your bows, and turn you over to the Sixth legion’s camp prefect for general duties. You either make a bloody effort or you’ll find yourselves cleaning out the latrines on a permanent basis.’ He paused and scowled across the century’s ranks, allowing the threat to sink in properly. ‘So, sword drill, and I suggest you put some effort into it this time…’
Watching the 8th going through their paces again, Frontinius noticed Marcus nod to Qadir, motioning for the practice to continue before taking Antenoch and Morban to one side. He nudged the prefect’s arm, pointing at the three figures as they limbered up for sparring.
‘The centurion seems to have decided to work off his frustrations with a little swordplay. Watch carefully, he’s quicker than greased weasel shit once he gets going.’
The two soldiers each took up a wooden practice sword, buckled their helmets tightly and raised their shields ready to fight. Marcus, who, as the prefect was intrigued to note, was wielding a second wooden sword instead of a shield, waited in almost perfect immobility while the two men approached him from either side with slow, careful steps, clearly intending to attack their officer in a pincer movement in the hope of overwhelming him. They paused in their advances for a moment, exchanged glances and then, in a sudden flurry of movement, both men struck, Antenoch stabbing his sword at his officer’s chest while Morban swung his weapon in a vicious arc at his head.
Marcus parried the first attack while ducking under the second and shoulder-charging his standard-bearer’s shield, the impact making the older man stagger back off balance and fall back on to the ground. With one assailant momentarily out of the fight, Marcus turned on Antenoch with a speed and purpose that immediately put the clerk on the defensive, hammering a blow into the edge of his clerk’s raised shield with his left-hand weapon. As Antenoch compensated by pushing the shield round to his right, the young centurion feinted left then darted right, leaping into the air to jab his blade around the shield’s edge and into the soft flesh of his neck, pulling the blow to avoid breaking the skin but still inflicting a painful scratch. He spun away from the cursing soldier, avoiding a wild swing from Morban by a hand’s span as the standard-bearer charged back into the fight. The older man went for him with furious purpose, hacking wildly in the hope of overwhelming his defence, but Marcus simply stepped back out of range of a shield punch, parrying the blows until the short-lived power of the standard-bearer’s attack had burned out. As the pace of his attacks slowed, the centurion took the attack back to him, disarming the sweating
