next few days, eh, Calgus? We’ll wait here for a few hours just to be sure, then head north and find this detachment the captive told us all about.’ Turning to discover the source of the Selgovae chief’s silence, he found the other man’s face sombre. What’s the matter? I would have thought you’d be pleased to see the back of them. You can strike out for your homelands now, or stay with us if you will, but either way their threat is lifted.’
Calgus pursed his lips, shaking his head slightly.
It’s all a bit too easy, Drust, too easy by a long way. I know that tribune of old, and he’s not the type to turn his back and walk away that quickly. There’ll be men left behind them, you can be sure of that, watching and waiting to signal to the rest of them that we’re on the move.’
Drust shook his head, laughing softly at the other man’s caution.
‘Nobody could ever accuse you of underestimating your enemy, Calgus – apart from allowing them to break into your camp and slaughter your army, that is. Once burned, forever cautious, eh? Well, just to make you happy I’ll send a scouting party out to make sure they’ve really all left. Five hundred men ought to be able to clean the landscape of any watchers they’ve left behind.’
The volunteer squadron took a late breakfast once they had reached the southern face of the hills beyond the River Tuidius, each rider feeding his mount with oats from the sack tied to his saddle before sitting down to eat his own meal of dried meat and hard cheese, leaving the horses to crop the grass where they were hobbled. The hills to the north loomed above the group, their scree-littered upper slopes glittering with dew in the sun’s pale morning light. Silus ate on his feet, staring hard to the east and chewing vigorously on a chunk of pork. Marcus stood and walked across to him.
‘What next, Decurion? Up and over the hills?’
He waited patiently while the other man chewed hard for a moment and then swallowed with a grimace, washing the tough wad of meat down with a slug of water from his water skin, waving a hand at the hills to the north.
‘Over that lot? Not likely, they’re a death trap to cavalry, littered with small stones that will break a horse’s leg, or make it fall and throw the rider, and the slopes are steeper than they look from here. No, I think we’ll just take a gentle trot along the line of these foothills towards the coast in an extended line, and see what we can scare out of the landscape. Not that I expect to find anyone this far from the ford. We’ll cross the hills in a few miles, when they’re a bit less risky, and aim to meet the road, such as it is, about five miles north of the ford. If my guess is correct, that will put us well to the north of any scouts hiding to watch the crossing, and in the best possible position to intercept them when they make a run back to the fortress.’ He turned to face the men sat eating on the hill’s gentle slope. ‘Get your nosebag down you and get back on your feet, we’ve a nice long ride ahead of us.’
The praetorians were still eating their breakfast at the roadside when a pair of message riders clattered down the road from the north, reining in their horses as Rapax stepped on to the hard surface and flagged them down, both men throwing crisp salutes to the centurion as they dismounted. The battle-scarred officer returned them with a swift gesture, waving a hand at the fire.
‘I’m Rapax, centurion of the Fourth Cohort Praetorian Guard, and these are my men. We’re marching north in pursuit of a fugitive from imperial justice and hoping for news of events that might lead us to him. Come and join us for a short time, and share what you know with us. We’ll do our best to repay you with whatever we have left over from our meal.’
The pair nodded their thanks to the soldiers as they shuffled round to make a space for them to squat in the fire’s warmth, one of them glancing with a horseman’s interest at the mounts tied to trees around the clearing. Rapax handed them a piece of bread apiece, warm from the fire’s edge.
‘You bear news from the north?’
The more senior of the two nodded, his mouth full of bread, speaking in staccato sentences as he ate.
‘We defeated the rebels four days ago, Centurion, broke into their camp and massacred the Selgovae, but the Venicones got away, thousands of them, and we’ve been hunting them ever since. They took refuge in Three Mountains…’ The lack of comprehension on the centurion’s face took him aback for a moment. ‘Ah, it’s a large fortress about fifteen miles to the north, abandoned and burned out when the barbarians came south. They captured one of our officers and tortured something out of him. We don’t really know what, but we’ve pulled back to get them to leave the fort. Our tribune thinks they might be moving to attack one of the auxiliary cohorts for some reason.’
Excingus glanced across the fire at him, a look of mild curiosity on his face.
‘An auxiliary cohort? I’ve got a cousin serving with one of the cohorts that defends the Wall. Begins with a “t”, from memory…’
‘Tungrians? That’s the cohort they seem to have gone after.’
The corn officer wrinkled his forehead in apparent concentration.
‘Tungrians… no, that’s not it. Perhaps it was a “v”. Anyway, you’re riding south to take the news to the governor, I’d imagine?’
The double-pay man nodded sagely, while his silent companion put a hand to his belt in an apparent search for some item or other.
‘Yes, we’ll be at Noisy Valley before dark, and briefing message riders to take the word to wherever the governor is. Eight thousand barbarian warriors at Three Mountains and expected to head north soon, possibly heading to intercept the Tungrian detachment sent to free the Dinpaladyr.’
His colleague shook his head in exasperation, evidently unable to find whatever it was he was searching for, and stood with an apologetic shrug at the man next to him.
‘It’ll be in my saddlebag. Won’t be a moment.’
Excingus’s eyes narrowed.
‘The Dinpaladyr?’
The seated horseman hurried to explain the term.
‘Local tongue, sir. It translates as the Fortress of a Thousand Spears, or something close to it.’ Excingus raised an eyebrow. ‘It’s the capital of the Votadini tribe, Centurion. The Tungrians and a few of our lads have been sent north to free it from the last of the Selgovae, though why the Venicones should want to stick their nose in is beyond…’
Rapax rammed his dagger up through the cavalryman’s throat, springing up from his squatting position and reaching to his belt for another blade as the second rider ran the last few paces to his horse and leapt astride it, jabbing his booted heels into its sides. Pulling his arm back and holding the thin sliver of iron by the side of his head for a split second, he flicked the knife forward with a fluid jerk that sent it across the clearing in a split-second flash of polished metal to strike the fleeing horseman in the back of the neck. He teetered for a moment, stunned by the sudden, intense pain, but managed to keep his seat as his mount clattered away down the road, lost to view in seconds. Rapax shook his head, staring after the wounded man for a moment before turning back to his stunned soldiers.
‘You can bring her out now!’
Excingus stood, the shock of the cavalryman’s death starting to wear off but with his face furrowed with incomprehension.
‘One moment I’m having a perfectly civilised conversation with a man who clearly has no idea of our little secret, and the next thing I know I’m watching you butcher the poor bastard and hurl the cutlery around as if you’ve got something to prove. Might I enquire quite what’s got into you?’
Rapax pulled his dagger from the dead man’s throat, wiping the blade on the sleeve of his tunic.
‘Your man here was clueless all right, but his mate had worked out what was going on. All that playacting about looking for something that just happened to be in his saddlebag? That was just a pretext to let him get back to his horse without alarming us. I only realised it when he took one last look at the horses, and at one horse in particular. Hers.’ He pointed to Felicia as she emerged from the trees with a guardsman at her back. I saw him do it as they walked to the fire and thought nothing of it, just a horseman taking a natural interest in our animals, but as he walked back to his horse he did it again. He gave her horse a good hard stare, and he wasn’t walking like a man who was going to open his saddlebag and dig something out of it, he was winding himself up to jump on the horse and leave his mate here to face the music.’
Excingus’s face creased as he considered the situation.
‘If you’re right then he must have recognised the doctor’s horse, and put two and two together. In which case, we have a problem.’
