‘Yes, thank you for proving conclusively that the old ones are indeed the old ones. So, boy, the knife stays yours just as long as you do your jobs properly. The first time I find either his boots or armour – including his helmet – dirty when we’re dressing him in the morning, the knife goes straight back to… what’s your name?’
The Hamian bowed his head in greeting, touching a hand to his forehead.
‘I am Hamid.’
‘To your new uncle Hamid. Deal?’
‘Yes!’
‘Good. Put the sheath on your belt, like this… see?’
The child stared happily at the knife resting at his hip, putting one hand on the handle in a self-conscious pose.
‘Never mind posing for the sculptor, say thanks to Uncle Hamid here for being so generous.’
The Hamian struggled to stay upright as Lupus wrapped his arms round his neck.
‘Thanks, Uncle Hamid!’
‘Now, off with you up the column. Go and show your grandad your new weapon. Oh…’
He arrested the child’s departure with a swift grab at his belt.
‘And one more thing. No messing about with it, right? No throwing it, no cutting your initials into trees and no trying to cut your hair either. I catch you mucking about with that, or hear about it from anyone else, you’ll lose the knife and you won’t get it back. You want to be a soldier, you’d better learn to behave like one. Go!’
Lupus ran happily up the century’s length, shouting to his grandfather. Antenoch settled back on his elbows, puffing out a sigh and shaking his head slightly with a half-smile.
‘I don’t know where the child’s energy comes from.’
He held out a hand to the Hamian.
‘Thanks, Hamid, that was decent of you.’
The other man shrugged.
‘He good boy. We all been young, wanted knife. He been unlucky, we hear. Give him little happiness, eh?’
Antenoch nodded.
‘Besides, his grandfather foolish enough to make me large bet this morning. He already paid for knife.’
‘Ah, that was you, was it? Well, it was still kind of you. Here…’
He delved into his bag and pulled out a small paper parcel, passing it over to the Hamian.
‘I was saving this to share with the boy later, but I think he’d rather have the knife.’
‘Cake?’
‘Honey cake. Good too, go on, get it down your neck before we’re on the move again. I can’t see the boys in the shiny armour waiting very long before getting us on our feet again, the morning’s too good to waste when there’s still a long way to go to the river.’
Farther up the column the barbarian warriors were sitting in a tight group close to Dubnus’s 9th Century, the two groups exchanging wary glances. After a few minutes Dubnus sighed, told his chosen man to keep an eye on things and got to his feet, walking across to the Votadini group. Hundreds of soldiers watched his move with mixed feelings, one of them nudging his mate and pointing at the young centurion.
‘Fuck me, the prince is going for a chat with them.’
Frontinius overheard the comment and swivelled from his discussion with Scaurus, taking in his centurion’s approach to the diminished warband’s leader. Standing in front of the squatting Votadini nobleman, he put out a hand.
‘You must be Martos. My name is Dubnus, formerly a prince of the Brigantes people and now a soldier of Rome. If we are to walk these hills in company we might as well be on speaking terms
…’
The words hung in the air for a long moment, as Martos looked the centurion up and down with blank-faced neutrality before returning his gaze to the outstretched hand.
‘Well, Dubnus, former prince of the Brigantes…’
He took the offered hand, using it to pull himself to his feet. Face to face the two men were well matched, both powerfully muscled from years of wielding their heavy weapons, their faces dark from the continual exposure to the elements and their stances confident in their ability to best any man put in front of them.
‘… it seems we have something in common, you and I, for I am a former prince of the Votadini, now reduced to running with the very wolves we sought to drive from our land.’
He stared hard at the centurion, waiting for any sign of offence. To his surprise Dubnus merely smiled grimly.
‘Oh yes, I know that feeling. And yet I have made my peace with these people, and turned my sword arm to their purpose. Will you walk alongside me when we rejoin the march? Perhaps we can offer each other some conversation of interest?’
Martos nodded slowly.
‘I will. I might better understand what put you in that uniform.’
Frontinius watched as the two men nodded to each other and returned to their respective sides of the divide between the Tungrians and Votadini.
‘Of all my officers, it would be Dubnus to make the first move…’
He turned to find Scaurus with a quizzical look on his face.
‘I’m forgetting, you don’t know the man. The centurion in question was tribal nobility south of the wall before he joined the cohort. Perhaps he understands what your man Martos is feeling in this situation better than the man himself.’
‘And perhaps we start to see the method in our governor’s apparent madness, eh, First Spear?’
Frontinius snorted and turned away, calling the cohort back on to its feet for the march, but Scaurus had seen the thoughtful look on his face, and stood waiting for the march to resume with a quiet smile.
The two cohorts marched at the standard campaign pace for most of the morning, skirting along the edge of the mountains in bright sunshine. From their path along the mountains’ outskirts, two and three hundred feet above the plain, they could see the main body of the army. The two legions were marching alongside the river as it snaked across the valley, and a mile beyond their columns the two cohorts thrown out as guards on the right flank clung to the low slopes of the hills to the south. Dubnus and Martos walked together between the 9th Century and the Votadini remnant, deep in conversation. Speaking in their own language, their initial diffidence had quickly been forgotten as the barriers of their respective causes fell under their mutual curiosity.
‘So I had little choice. Once my father was gone I knew that going back to my own people would see me dead inside a day. Besides, he made me swear to go to the Romans as he lay dying…’
Martos nodded solemnly.
‘Such an oath cannot be denied once made.’
‘Aye. It was hard for me here at first, even if Uncle Sextus…’ He caught the Briton’s uncomprehending frown, ‘Sorry, First Spear Frontinius, only he was a centurion at the time, had made a promise to my father to take me in. The men that commanded this cohort then did all they could to break me.’ He smiled. ‘The formal beatings never really bothered me, and they stopped the informal beatings after I got tired of defending myself and put three men in the fort’s hospital for a month. After that things just settled down, and we all got used to each other. Mind you, I still wouldn’t be an officer today if it weren’t for a Ro… for a man that joined us a few months ago. But that’s another story. And you, how do you come to be walking into danger alongside us, instead of waiting for us with your comrades?’
Martos recounted the story of his desire to supplant his uncle the king, and the subsequent betrayal by Calgus, his voice bitter with the recent memory.
‘I was a fool, and nothing less. I should have stood by my king, but my head was turned by Calgus and his promises that I would return to my tribal lands in victory, and as his closest ally.’ His voice fell, the words so soft that Dubnus strained to hear them. ‘I wanted to be king, and all I achieved was the massacre of my warriors and the destruction of our family. My king is probably dead by now, and Calgus will send one of his trusted men north to rule my kingdom. My children will be put to death and my woman will either be killed or more likely made a toy for the new leader’s men.’
He stared out over the plain below them in silence for a moment before speaking again, his voice
