‘Habitus was a proud old bastard by all accounts, old enough that he should have retired, but the locals weren’t all that happy when the Wall went up and divided them from each other, and they expressed that unhappiness by killing Romans whenever and wherever they could, given the chance. Anyway, old Habitus was ordered to take his century out on patrol one day not very far from here, or so the story goes. He probably thought that patrolling in such limited strength was a good way to get attacked, but he was too much of a soldier to question orders and so off they went.’
He spat on to the road’s surface.
‘Poor bastards. They were ten miles or so from camp when the local blue-noses jumped them. Sounds familiar, eh? The barbarians were three hundred strong, or thereabouts, more than three of them for every man in the century. Old Habitus had seen it all by that stage of his career, of course, and he knew that if he allowed his men to run they’d all be dead inside a count of five hundred, and so he shouted at them to form a square, to stop the tribesmen from getting round their flanks, and to stand and fight.’
He glanced across their ranks, finding every man’s face turned to his and their expressions taut with interest.
‘And fight they did. Retreating when they could, with blue-noses surrounding them on all sides and the day wearing on into afternoon, and still they fought. A wounded man was a dead man, that far from help, and more than one dying soldier tried to take one or two of the savages with him by stepping out to fight man to man, but for the most part they held their ranks and slowly hacked their way back along the route they’d come earlier in the day. They left a trail of corpses behind them, their own and those of the tribesmen attacking them, but they held their nerve even when half of them had been killed and the remaining men were almost dead on their feet. The trumpeter kept calling for help, when he wasn’t spearing blue-noses, and eventually, with evening drawing on, they heard the sound of an answering trumpet. There were Roman soldiers close by, and an end to their torment. The barbarians, well, they knew that their chance to take a centurion’s head was slipping from their grasp, so they mounted one last wild attack, swarming around the detachment’s shields in a desperate charge, but old Habitus shouted for his men to hold on for just a little longer, and his soldiers stood firm in a circle of men that shrank with every casualty until another three centuries came over the hill and chased off the barbarians. There were thirty of them left standing, and not many of them without a wound of some kind, but they marched back into their camp with their heads up and their spears black with dried blood.’
He paused for a moment before continuing. The detachment was almost at the top of the hill, and the fort’s burned and shattered timbers were looming on the skyline.
‘Centurion Habitus was killed before his century was relieved. He stopped a spear in the back of his neck that dropped him like a sack of shit, poor old bastard. The men that survived said that they’d all have died in the first hour if it hadn’t been for him bellowing at them to keep fighting, and that all the way through the fight he had a little smile on his face, as if he knew what was coming before the end. They named the fort after him to act as an example to the rest of the army…’ He raked a hard stare across their faces. ‘… and to you, if you have the guts to follow it. Right, then, off the road here and into the fort. Get yourselves fed and then settle down for the night, one man from each tent party to stand guard with a two-hourly relief. And if I find any of you sleeping on guard there’ll be no need to draw lots for who’ll be beating you to death, because I’ll already have done the job with my bare hands.’
Later in the evening, before darkness fell, he called the watch officer to him with a request that raised the other man’s eyebrows.
‘Help me get out of this armour, will you, Titus? I can’t bend enough to slide out of it.’
The watch officer shrugged and called another soldier over, the pair of them lifting the heavy mail armour from their new centurion’s shoulders while he squatted to allow them to pull it clear. With the armour removed Dubnus pulled off the padded arming jacket and tunic that he wore beneath it, revealing his muscular upper body to the watching soldiers. A long strip of linen was wound around his stomach several times to form a thick bandage, and tied in place by its trailing ends, and as they watched he stripped it away, winding it up into a neat roll of cloth. As the linen fell away from his stomach it revealed a vivid red scar an inch wide, and Titus grimaced at the sight, his bruised face twisting in sympathy.
‘Spear?’
Dubnus nodded curtly, wondering whether he was taking too big a risk in letting the soldiers see his weakness.
‘Yes, two weeks ago at the battle of the Waterfall. The tattooed bastard put the bloody thing clean through my mail and skewered me from front to back. It’s healing well enough, but it still hurts like the blade’s still in there when I try to bend.’
He watched as the realisation that their new officer was not as invulnerable as he seemed sank into the soldiers’ faces and laughed at them, putting his hands on his hips with a smile.
‘Any two of you fancy having a try at me now?’
One by one they looked away, until only the watch officer held his gaze.
‘You’re not recovered from a spear wound and you’ve still got the apples to come north looking for a fight? Why?’
Dubnus smiled wryly, stretching wearily.
‘I’ll tell you once we’re on the road tomorrow morning. If, that is, I’m still alive tomorrow morning.’
8
The volunteer squadron camped in the cover of the shallow valley that night, within a few minutes’ ride of the River Tuidius. Silus had calculated that any watchers would most likely be hiding farther to the east, keeping watch on the ford that the cohort would use to cross the Tuidius rather than the apparently unfordable stretch of river to its west, but he was nevertheless loath to abandon the valley’s cover. They spent an uneventful night, and awoke at dawn to find, just as Silus had predicted, that the river’s plain was wreathed in a thick mist that restricted visibility to no better than a hundred paces. The newly promoted decurion gathered his men about him, his words made dull by the mist’s muffling curtains of vapour.
‘I was counting on a nice thick layer of river fog. It always happens at this time of year once the nights get cold, and it means that we can get across the river with no risk of anyone seeing us. So there’s no time for breakfast now, we need to get swimming before it lifts. Get your kit packed but don’t wear anything heavier than your tunics and your cloaks to keep you warm while we ride down to the river. Your armour and weapons will need to be strapped to your saddles, so make sure you roll your mail up nice and tight.’
The squadron followed his lead down to the river’s edge, each man watching the horse in front of him intently as the mist gathered in thick curtains that curtailed visibility to a few feet in some places as they made their way across the river’s flat plain. Silus gathered them around him again at the water’s edge and pointed to his own equipment, already packed on to his horse’s back.
‘The Batavians are supposed to have swum across rivers like this and even wider alongside their horses in full armour, back in the days when the divine Julius conquered the south of this island, but I’m buggered if I can see how they managed it. There are those that think they might have used their shields for buoyancy, but there’s no bloody way I’d risk slipping off my board and sinking like a stone in mid-river. We’re doing it my way today, so go and have a look at my horse and see how I’ve got my armour laid across the saddle, and with my sword on top. Look at the way I’ve secured them with my rope, and used it to tie my spear and shield to the beast’s side. Then take a length of rope and do the same yourselves, and I’ll come round and see how good a job you’ve done. And make sure your spear isn’t going to stab your horse in the eye if the poor sod turns his head to find out what the fuck you think you’re doing, eh?’
He strolled around the horses, providing help to those men to whom the act of tying their equipment to their mount was proving difficult, eventually expressing his satisfaction with their preparations. Pulling off his tunic, he folded it neatly and slipped it under the rope holding his armour in place, then did the same with his blanket and boots. Standing naked in the cold morning air, he smiled wryly at the men around him.
‘Well then, let’s have you stripped down to your skins and ready to swim. And don’t bother making the usual tired excuses about how cold it is.’
