afternoon, while you sat and waited for us to send them running for you to chase down. You all rode back from that hunt with heads by the half-dozen, but my men were too tired, too damned numb, to take their swords to the corpses of the men they’d killed. Every one of these men has been blooded, Double-Pay, and stared into the eyes of men that could have been their brothers as they died on our iron. They’ve seen more fighting in the last few months than is good for them, I’d say, or good for anyone else that tries to play the fool with them. If your intention here is to humiliate them because they can’t vault into the saddle like a man that’s been practising the trick for the last year, I’d advise you to consider what a man that’s been humiliated, and who has no concern for the consequences of taking revenge for a slight, might consider doing to you once night has fallen across tonight’s camp.’
Silus swallowed nervously, without even being aware of it.
‘I see your point, Centurion. Perhaps I could…’
Marcus nodded, his disgust evident in the curl of his lip.
‘Yes. Perhaps you could, Double-Pay.’
He gestured to the waiting infantrymen.
‘After you.’
The cavalryman gave his decurion a swift glance, finding little in Cornelius Felix’s face to encourage him. He coughed, groping for the right reaction, the words spilling out a fraction too quickly for any of the men gathered around him to be fooled.
‘I think you’re right, Centurion, that strap does appear to be worn. I’ll have the saddler replace it once we rejoin the rest of the wing.’
Marcus nodded magnanimously.
‘Quite so, Double-Pay. And now, you were saying? Time for my fellow infantrymen to take their turn displaying the cavalry mount?’
Silus shook his head decisively.
‘I don’t think they can be expected to perform to that standard, Centurion. A hand up into the saddle, I think, and a quick trot round, that’ll be enough to show me what they’ve got.’
Marcus nodded, shooting a quick glance at Cornelius Felix to find the decurion indicating his own approval, a hint of a smile on his face. He turned back to the volunteers, taking stock of the men from his own cohort who had stepped forward, looking for the chance to become cavalrymen. Lurking among them was a familiar figure, and while Silus took the next man out in front of the group to try his hand with the waiting horse, Marcus strode into the group, tapping the man on the shoulder and pulling him to one side.
‘Scarface? I didn’t know you could ride? In fact, if I didn’t know better I’d say you were determined never to let me out of your sight, no matter what you have to put yourself through. Can you even get up on a horse without falling over the other side and breaking your neck?’
The soldier blushed, but stuck his chest out in response to the challenge.
‘I was born on a farm, Centurion. I learned to ride young. And you’re not going to go charging around the hills with this shower of donkey wallopers without one of us to keep an eye out for you.’
‘Us?’
The soldier blushed a deeper shade of red, his eyes narrowing with something close to, but not quite, righteous anger.
‘You’ve been a bit of a wild one ever since you joined the cohort, Centurion. All summer you’ve been running from one fight to the next, and never a thought for your men, or for the pretty girl that’s waiting for you at Noisy Valley. All the lads that matter in the Ninth Century think you’ve a death wish, and we’ve decided to keep you alive until winter at least. And I’m the only one that can ride…’
He stopped talking, having realised that Marcus was looking over his shoulder, a wry smile creasing his face.
‘Perhaps you are, Scarface. And perhaps you’re not.’
The soldier turned, to find Qadir standing behind him. Marcus raised an eyebrow.
‘And are you another one of “us”, Qadir?’
The Hamian shook his head, giving Scarface a disgusted look.
‘Well done, then, soldier. You’re alone with the centurion for a moment and it seems that you’ve already spilled the beans to him. Go and climb on that horse, and leave us to talk.’
Red faced and abashed, the soldier slunk away to take his place in the queue to mount the long-suffering mare, while Marcus gave his deputy a puzzled frown.
‘So how do you get to walk away from the Ninth so easily, given their lack of an officer?’
Qadir shrugged.
‘I just told the tribune what I can do on a horse. He thought it would be a good idea if I were riding alongside you, so he gave Morban my stick to poke in the soldiers’ backs for a while, and your trumpeter gets to polish Morban’s standard twice a day.’
‘And just what can you do on a horse?’
Qadir smiled, and Marcus caught a brief glimpse of a relaxed confidence he hadn’t seen in the man’s demeanour at any point in the weeks they had spent together since their first meeting in the port of Arab Town.
‘I have some small skill in the saddle. I…’
Something behind Marcus caught the Hamian’s eye, and his jaw dropped fractionally.
‘Oh, Deasura, that’s not a sight you’ll see every day!’
Marcus turned and stifled a laugh in the face of an irascible German sitting uncomfortably on the now distinctly unhappy-looking cavalry horse. He walked around the mare, his face alive with the first smile since Rufius’s death.
‘Well, Arminius, I can’t say you’re the most natural horseman I’ve ever seen.’
Arminius sneered down at the men standing around him, then leaned out of the saddle and put a sausage- sized finger in Double-Pay Silus’s face.
‘Just so we’re clear, I hate horses. Tribune Scaurus says I ride like a mule tender with bleeding piles, and that I have all the skill in the saddle of a sack full of shit. And despite that, before you open your mouth, I’m one of your thirty-one horsemen and that’s official. You don’t like it, I don’t like it, but the tribune couldn’t give a toss what either of us think. Wherever Centurion Corvus goes, I go. So there it is.’
He climbed down from the horse and clenched both of his massive fists, scowling around him.
‘And anyone that finds that funny had better be ready for an unscheduled sleep.’
Double-Pay Silus looked at him thoughtfully, then beckoned his pay-and-a-half across to join him.
‘See that?’
He pointed at the German, and the other man nodded with pursed lips.
‘What have we got that’ll carry him thirty miles in a day without breaking down inside a week?’
South of the Wall, in a copse overlooking the Sailors’ Town fort, Centurion Rapax and his colleague Excingus were exchanging uneasy glances. The fort was silent, without any movement, and Rapax had been watching its walls intently for long enough to be sure it was deserted. Excingus fished out his pocket tablet, once again checking their route against the directions he’d been given in Yew Grove two days before.
‘North from Waterfall Town ten miles, across the river dam and then another nine miles north up the road to Vintner’s Way, then carry on to Sailors’ Town.’ He paused, giving the silent fort another long, searching stare. ‘Well, that’s bloody Sailors’ Town right enough, and it looks just as dead as the first two ghost towns we’ve ridden past this morning. I say we push on, and get to this Noisy Valley place soonest.’
Rapax spat on the copse’s dry earth.
‘That centurion you got the directions from was close to soiling himself, and there he was with half a cohort between his precious skin and the local thrill seekers. He had no patrols out looking for information, so he had no idea of what might have happened up this way in the last few days. I didn’t like the last place, but we were close enough to friendly forces for the locals to be keeping a low profile. Here, on the other hand…’
Excingus nodded and stared across the three hundred paces that separated copse and fort.
‘We’re too far out to see what’s in there. Perhaps we should get a little closer?’
His colleague shook his head decisively, sniffing the air.
‘Smell that? It’s faint, but we’re downwind from the fort. That’s the smell of rotting meat, old son. Once you’ve had a noseful of that reek you never forget it. That fort’s full of nothing but corpses and flies, and the
