them.’
Marcus gave him a sidelong glance, a half-smile on his lips, and the German bridled at the thought of knowledge to which he was not privy.
‘You already know, don’t you?!’
Marcus grinned, leaning back in his saddle and yawning extravagantly.
‘If you’d been in your usual place at the commander’s conference, standing guard at the door with one ear inside the tent, rather than devoting your mornings to the martial education of undeserving children, you’d know too.’
Arminius leaned out of his saddle, poking the Roman in the shoulder and giving him a reproachful glare.
‘To think that I stood over that child until I could see a shine on those boots of yours, only to be repaid with mocking laughter. You’re a hard man, Centurion Corvus.’
Marcus looked about him ostentatiously, as if seeking to avoid being overheard, despite the fact that they had fallen thirty paces behind the riders ahead of them.
‘I probably shouldn’t share this with anyone not invited to the briefing, but since it’s you…’ He beckoned the German to bring his head closer, muttering his next words in the other man’s ear. ‘… all you need to do is find out what it was that the Fifth and Ninth Centuries were doing yesterday, while Martos was persuading Harn to cooperate with us. When you know what it was they were collecting from the men we killed, you’ll have a fair idea of the answer to your question. Now let’s see how these beasts feel about having a bit of a trot, or we’ll fall so far behind the squadron that the leading Tungrian century will overtake us. And I’ve no desire to find myself subjected to the kind of humour that would inspire. Have you heard the songs they sing about the cavalry?’
‘Why the bloody hell aren’t the bastards moving?’
Tribune Licinius turned to the speaker, his first spear, with a wry smile.
‘They’re not moving, First Spear, because they know very well that we can’t stay here and watch them for ever. Not enough food, for one thing, given the impoverished nature of the game in these parts, and bigger fish to fry for another. My orders are explicit – to harry the Venicones until we’ve destroyed them or there’s just no point to it any more, and then to ride south to join the campaign against the Brigantes. Drust ought to know that I don’t have the luxury of sitting and watching him for very much longer, and if he’s not bright enough to have worked it out I’m absolutely bloody sure that Calgus will have made sure he knows which way the wind’s blowing. The longer we sit here watching a bunch of savages who’re out of the fight as far as this particular rebellion goes, and as a consequence doing absolutely nothing of any value, the itchier my feet are going to get.’
His subordinate nodded his understanding.
‘So we head south, then?’
Licinius stroked his beard for a moment.
‘Yes. Sort of. Put the word out, as we discussed. It’s time for a little bit of subterfuge.’
When the call went out for a volunteer to watch the barbarians from hiding, once the cavalry wing was away over the hill and apparently headed south, one soldier put his hand up without hesitation. He stepped forward to face the man who ruled his world with quiet confidence, sure that his long-practised skills would see him safe no matter how thorough the Venicones might be in their inevitable search for spies. Licinius paced around him before taking him to one side and speaking quietly in measured tones, as if sensing the inner calm that fuelled the man’s self-belief.
‘Soldier Caius, isn’t it? Well, Caius, you know why I need a man to stay behind and watch this rabble while the rest of us are seen to ride south? I don’t have the luxury of waiting for the Venicones to move, so instead I must use deception to bring them out of their hole. So tell me, Soldier Caius, how will you carry this trick off? The bastard that leads that rabble will promise to reward the man who finds you beyond his dreams, because he will know beyond a doubt that you will be lurking somewhere within sight of those walls, waiting for them to make their move. You know what they did to Centurion Cyrus?’
Caius nodded, just a touch of obstinacy showing in his face at the attempt the tribune was making to talk him out of the reward he’d been told was on offer, if he survived the barbarian search, and delivered news of their movements to the riders lurking far enough to the west to be undiscoverable.
‘You heard that he took a long time dying, and left this life with his guts cooling in a wide pool of his own blood? And you’re still determined to take this risk?’
Caius nodded again, with more pride than irritation this time.
‘So tell me, just how do you plan to live through the hours after we leavathen, and yet still keep your eyes on their camp?’
Caius looked him in the face before replying, his own face set in an expression of utter confidence in his own abilities.
‘Tribune, before I was a soldier, I was a cattle thief. I was the man that watched the herds until the men paid by the farmers to keep us away from their animals were distracted. I would watch for days at a time, and never once did anyone catch sight of me. I’m going to dig myself a hide, and when it’s done I ask that you should walk away for fifty paces before turning back to look for me. Walk closer, and every few paces look again, until you’re back where you started. Then decide if you believe I can perform this task for you. I shall need my brother to help me with this. He serves in the same tent party.’
And with that he took up the sharp-bladed spade he’d carried with him from his tent and set to work, quickly digging out a two-foot-deep trench long enough to accept the length of his body lying flat, while his brother went to find branches of the right thickness and cut them down to the necessary length, dropping twenty of them at his feet and then standing back to watch him work his magic. Digging each one of the sticks into one side of the trench, two inches below the hole’s lip, and then forcing each one’s other end laterally into the facing wall’s earth, he inserted them at finger-length intervals to form a slatted roof to the hide, then arranged the waiting turf strips across them in exactly the order they’d been removed. Working with slow and painstaking care, he made sure that the joins between each piece of turf were invisible, packing small sticks between the roof slats and the turfs where the resulting effect looked unrealistic, working until the hide’s roof appeared no different to the ground around it. Nodding to his brother, he slid into the remaining gap with painstaking, delicate care, and then watched from below ground as the last turf was packed carefully into its place to complete the deception.
Standing to one side and watching, Licinius’s face remained impassive, but his eyes narrowed as the soldier wriggled into his hiding place and the last turf was eased into the deceptive layer of cover arranged over the trench. With one final adjustment, a gentle touch to slightly flatten the turf, the remaining brother turned to face him and saluted, gesturing with a hand for the tribune to conduct the test that had been requested of him. Licinius nodded to him and turned away, walking a brisk fifty paces before turning back to scan the ground beneath which he knew the man was hiding. While he’d had no expectation of discerning any clue as to the hide’s location at that distance, he was at first impressed and then bemused by the lack of any betrayal of its presence the closer he got to the spot where he assumed it to be. After a moment more he was standing more or less where he’d started, looking about him with resigned amusement.
‘Go on, then, show me where he is.’
Caius’s brother let out a piercing whistle, clearly intended to be heard in the hide, and to the tribune’s astonishment the ground at his very feet erupted upwards, making him step back involuntarily as the hidden soldier burst from his hide with a broad grin.
‘Jupiter’s hairy balls! I nearly died of bloody shock!’ Putting a hand to his chest and rolling his eyes, Licinius peered down into the freshly revealed hole. ‘I would never have believed it. Can you do this at night, so that the blue-noses don’t have the chance to see you digging yourself in?’
‘Yes, Tribune, with enough moonlight to work by the result is no different.’
The tribune turned to his first spear, waiting impassively to one side.
‘Very well, then, it seems that we have a scout. Detail a tent party, a steady one, mind you, to take this man and his brother out tonight, and dig him in somewhere with a good view of Three Mountains. Make sure it’s well away from anything that the blue-noses might be poking with their spears once we’ve ridden off tomorrow. We don’t want any of them falling through Soldier Caius’s turf roof, do we? And detail a party of message riders to wait for him at a safe distance, ready to bring us the news once Drust has his savages on the move. I don’t have a bloody clue where he’ll lead them, but I’ll bet you a flask of Falernian to a cup of warm piss that the one place he won’t be taking them is straight back home.’
Dubnus surveyed the men the tribune had detailed to his command with a jaundiced eye, turning back to the
