‘Yes. I will personally take my sword and cut him down from where he’s hanging.’
‘And you’ll keep these Votadini dogs from torturing any of my men?’
‘If you keep your side of the deal, yes. It won’t be hard, since they want what I want just as badly as I do. But I think you ought to listen to what it is that I want before you agree too quickly. Your man there will keep while we discuss how you’re going to help us liberate Martos’s people from yours. It’s either that, or we’ll all spend an entertaining day watching him peel your young lad there down to a strip of raw meat. And we have a plentiful supply of salt, should simple skinning get too repetitive.’
Rapax and Excingus swept into the hospital building in the middle of Felicia’s rounds that morning, brushing aside her assistant’s attempts to keep them from disturbing her. Excingus did the talking, while the praetorian stood impatiently in the background, tapping the floor with one foot in the manner of a man with a strong need to be elsewhere. The corn officer was insistent, despite the doctor’s protests that she had more than enough to keep her busy in the hospital.
‘I understand completely, madam, and I assure you that I wouldn’t be asking you to leave your patients if this wasn’t a matter of a man’s life. Of course, we can all go and see Tribune Paulus if that’s what’s needed, but in the time that will take, this centurion’s man will probably die…’
He stood waiting, while Felicia stared at her feet for a moment.
‘He has a broken leg?’
Excingus nodded quickly.
‘He slipped, jammed his foot into a gap between two rocks, then fell sideways. The sound it made was quite horrible. We didn’t dare to move him, given that we were so close to the fort and your medical skills.’
She nodded decisively, turning to her orderly.
‘Very well. Julius, could you fetch my instruments, please? And my cloak. Bring your own too, you might be required.’
Rapax stepped forward, shaking his head.
‘No need, lady, we’ll have all the men you need with us.’
Felicia raised an eyebrow at him.
‘And your men are trained hospital orderlies, are they? I might well need some combination of a man’s strength and a medically trained mind to free your man’s leg. He’s coming with me.’
The praetorian nodded his grudging assent, shooting a wry glance at his colleague.
‘As you wish, lady.’
The party were mounted and on the road within minutes, the doctor and her orderly at the heart of a tight knot of riders who were waved through the fort’s north gate, the purpose of their haste already made clear to the guards. They rode up the steep hill towards the wall’s North Road gate in silence and were waved through the opened gateway with equal lack of ceremony. The party carried on up the road for another mile, until Rapax indicated a path that branched out into the open country.
‘He’s about half a mile down here.’
The party rode down the narrow track single file, with Excingus leading and Rapax at the rear, until they rounded a bend and saw the distinctive figure of a praetorian sprawled in the grass beside the path. Felicia jumped down from her horse with Julius at her shoulder, unaware that Rapax was close behind them and had drawn his dagger from its sheath. As the doctor moved in to take stock of the casualty’s condition, he took a grip of Julius’s hair and pulled his head back savagely, opening up the orderly’s throat for a swift pass of the knife’s blade. Felicia turned back from the unharmed soldier with a look of puzzled annoyance that changed in an instant to horror as her orderly’s blood spurted across the grass, his body held upright only by Rapax’s powerful grip on his hair as his eyes rolled slowly upwards. The praetorian pushed his tottering victim to the ground, leaning down to wipe his blade on the dying man’s cloak before resheathing the dagger. Folding his arms, he stared back at the wide-eyed woman with a defiant glare, shaking his head slightly.
‘You would insist on bringing him with you.’
Felicia’s look of horror slowly transformed into understanding, her face hardening as she realised how badly she’d misread the two centurions’ intentions.
‘You want to use me to get to Marcus.’
Excingus nodded brightly over his brother officer’s shoulder, a faint smile wreathing his lips.
‘I told you she was clever enough to work it out on her own. Yes, my dear, we’re going to hunt down your fugitive boyfriend, and you’re going to provide us with the means of making sure he comes to justice quietly. Your Marcus Valerius Aquila has been evading justice with his barbarian friends up here for long enough, and with your invaluable help we’re going to put an end to his little game of hide-and-seek.’
Felicia shook her head defiantly, her chin jutting with anger.
‘You’ll get no help from me! Marcus is innocent of any charge your masters might throw at his family to justify theft and murder, and I won’t be part of your evil!’
The corn officer strolled forward until he was close enough to the white-faced, trembling woman to see the sheen of tears forming in her eyes. When he spoke his voice was softer than before, almost apologetic.
‘I’m sorry, my dear, but you most certainly will. When the time comes you’ll beg for him to save you from the indignities you’re being subjected to. You’ll scream like a pig with a spear in its guts, and you’ll provide us with all the distraction we’ll need to do the job that should have been finished in Rome. Tie her wrists and put her back on the horse, we’re riding to the north.’
‘So now we march north and free the Dinpaladyr?’
Tribune Scaurus nodded tersely, watching as the young Selgovae warrior was cut down from the hastily erected wooden frame from which he had been suspended.
‘Yes, Martos. Those are my orders, and now that you’ve terrified this Selgovae remnant into obedience for me we’ll strike as fast and hard as we can.’
The Votadini prince stared across at the captives, now huddled under the spears of the legion cohort and watching with evident resentment as the two centuries of Tungrians moved among their dead, carrying out the grisly task to which the tribune had set them.
‘Obedience? From the Selgovae? I would rather trust a pack of wolves. These men will watch and wait for their chance to fight back and restore their lost honour. It would be better if we put them to the sword now.’
Scaurus shook his head firmly.
‘No. With them I think we have a chance to get inside the gates of your tribal fortress. Without them we could be camped outside it for weeks, while the men Calgus sent to usurp you sit and laugh at us, praying to their gods for the snows to come early this year and abusing your people to their hearts’ content. The prisoners will live just as long as they serve us, and your job, Martos, is to watch them like a hawk and make sure that they do. And besides, I have another trick up my sleeve with regard to ensuring Harn’s total obedience.’
Tribune Licinius sat in the quiet of his tent, the daily rations report from the cohort’s quartermaster unnoticed on the table in front of him, while his subconscious teased at the conundrum presented by the events of the previous night. Only minutes after their confrontation, Decurion Cyrus had marched out into the darkness beyond the temporary camp’s walls and simply vanished into thin air. Logic told him that his officer must have been taken by barbarian scouts, and yet the man’s behaviour just before his disappearance had been sufficiently strange to justify Licinius entertaining the possibility that he had chosen to disappear into the wilds for reasons that were as yet unclear. A shout from outside the tent snapped him out of his reverie, and another put him on his feet and out through the tent’s door. A soldier dashed up to him, saluting hastily and gasping out his message.
‘Tribune! The Venicones have got Decurion Cyrus!’
He hurried to the camp’s eastern gate, pushing through the men gathered around the earth rampart to where a cluster of his officers stood watching the walls of the ruined Three Mountains fort in silence. A man’s body had been lashed to a wooden frame on the stone wall’s top surface, and a cluster of barbarians were gathered around him, staring out towards the Roman camp. As the tribune watched, his eyes slitted with anger, one of them cupped his hands to his mouth and bellowed something made unintelligible by the distance. Looking about him, Licinius saw that his bodyguard, ever mindful of his safety, had gathered around him. He made a quick decision, turning to the dozen or so officers staring at the scene playing out in front of them.
‘I need to see what’s happening here. Gentlemen, you and my bodyguard can accompany me to within bowshot of the walls. Any barbarian sufficiently brave to attempt an attack on such an ugly collection of specimens would have my utter respect, so I’m guessing we’ll be safe enough. And besides, I have the feeling that Drust
