you can imagine about this sort of crime.’
Martos nodded his thanks to the tribune before turning back to the terrified elders.
‘I should kill you all… but to do that would leave the tribe without leadership. I can’t take the throne, I was as much to blame for the king’s death in my pride as you were in your deception and plotting. And with my son dead I have no heir to follow me, nor the appetite to take another woman for the purpose of breeding a successor. So, I shall be the kingmaker rather than the king, and my word will be law unless you all want to suffer a death as undignified as that of those you betrayed, and for your daughters and granddaughters to be whores for the legions. My sister’s son will be king, and you will guide him in the years that remain until he is old enough to rule alone.’
One of the elders opened his mouth to speak, but Martos raised a hand to forestall him.
‘The new king’s first act will be to sign a new friendship treaty with Rome, and this will include routine and frequent inspection visits to ensure that you fools are keeping your end of this distasteful bargain. This tribe will be an ally of Rome once more, and you will all work to ensure that friendship, or you will find this tribune, or one very much like him, calling you all to account.’
The elders exchanged glances, hardly daring to speak for fear of upsetting the delicate balance in Martos’s words. Iudocus stepped forward and nodded solemnly, spreading his arms as if to welcome the prince’s words.
‘Most regal, my lord, you have shown as us all…’
He stopped abruptly, looking down in confusion at the torrent of blood and bile pouring from his ruined belly. Martos had lunged forward with his hunting knife, concealed behind his back throughout his judgement on the elders, and ripped him open from hip to hip. He stepped back with a satisfied smile, watching as the stricken Iudocus fell to his knees and stared at him imploringly, a wavering moan of distress escaping from his lips as his blood puddled on the hall’s stone floor. The prince stared down at him contemptuously.
‘I said I was a realist, Iudocus. I didn’t say I was stupid. Besides, these sheep needed a reminder to take away with them of just how ruthless I’ll be if they ever stray from this agreement.’ He raised his voice. ‘I was careful not to open him up too widely, or to spill too much of his blood. This ruthless old bastard dies here, unaided and without any succour, and any man that touches him will die alongside him in equal agony. And when you’re dead, Iudocus, there’ll be no coin for the ferryman. I’m going to behead you and throw your headless body from the south rampart, where it can lie on the rocks to make a meal for the crows. Your head comes with me, as my guarantee that you’ll forever be caught between this world and the next. And as for you all…’ He pointed the knife at the horrified men standing around the elder’s spasming body. ‘This is the last and best warning that you’ll get. Cross me in any of what I’ve just commanded, and I will make sure you die just as slowly, and with just as little honour. Try me.’
10
Back at the fortress’s main gate, Marcus found a scene of orderly chaos as the Tungrians carried the last of the Selgovae dead through the wide archway and down the steep approach towards a rapidly growing pyre of wood that the other two cohorts were gathering from the nearby forest. Julius was standing in the gate’s shadow barking orders at the tired soldiers, and when he saw his fellow officer approaching down the fortress’s slope he waved a hand out over the plain below them, indicating the toiling soldiers crossing to and from the forest with bundles of firewood.
‘Once again the Twentieth Legion seems to have found its true role. You should have seen their first spear’s face when I told him and that tribune of theirs that the fight was already over. He looked like it was his birthday, and…’
A shout from the wall above him interrupted his musing.
‘Horsemen! To the west!’
Both centurions hurried up the ladder that led to the palisade’s rampart, turning to stare in the direction indicated by the sentry. At the limit of their vision, perhaps five miles to the west, Marcus could just make out a flicker of movement. A small band of riders with a long white banner trailing above them was riding for the fortress, the standard’s forked tail flickering in the wind of their passing. Julius shook his head with a disgusted look.
‘It’s the bloody Petriana. I’d know that dragon standard anywhere. I stood and watched the bloody thing fluttering in the breeze while they sat and watched us fighting and dying at Lost Eagle. And wherever that thing twists its tail you’ll usually find that wily old bastard Licinius. You!’ He shouted down to Scarface, who was standing at the bottom of the ladder. ‘Stop following your centurion around like some love-struck goat herder, go and find Tribune Scaurus and tell him that Tribune Licinius will be at the gate by the time he gets down here. Go!’
Scaurus joined his two officers in time to watch the last mile of the horsemen’s approach to the fortress. He stared out at the approaching cavalry squadron without any visible sign of surprise.
‘I’ve sent Martos to get some sleep, he was almost beside himself with fatigue. So, what have we here, just when I thought life was finally about to turn dull for the rest of the year? My colleague and his men aren’t riding like men who’ve decided to come by and see how we’ve done for the want of anything better to do.’
The Petriana’s tribune dismounted a dozen paces short of the gate and stalked up to the palisade wall with a grim smile, squinting up at Scaurus and his officers and then glancing back at the men building the pyre on the plain below the fortress. He called up to them, shielding his eyes with a raised hand.
‘Well now, colleague, I see you’ve accomplished your orders with the usual efficiency. Perhaps you ought to come down here and join me, though. I’ve something to tell you that will give you some pause for thought.’
Scaurus climbed down from the wall after instructing Julius to keep the men inside the Dinpaladyr at their tasks.
‘You’d better come with me, Centurion Corvus, I suspect I’m going to need someone to take notes of whatever it is my brother tribune has to tell me. I may well be too busy banging my head on the palisade in frustration.’
The two tribunes clasped hands, and Licinius waved a hand at the fortress with an appreciative nod.
‘Well done, Rutilius Scaurus. How long did this take? It looks as if your men are only just digging out your marching camp.’
Scaurus nodded happily, jerking a thumb at Marcus.
‘We got lucky, or rather Centurion Corvus here got lucky on our behalf. That and a little intervention from Prince Martos.’
He talked his colleague through the story of Marcus’s fight for the gate, and their subsequent discovery of the havoc wrought by Martos and the released Votadini warriors, and the young Roman found himself on the receiving end of a long stare from the veteran cavalryman.
‘Outstanding work, young man. Perhaps you should have chosen a more heroic name to hide behind, since it seems that you positively refuse to blend into the landscape and be forgotten. Which reminds me, there are imperial agents loose in the border area hunting for you. It’s hardly a surprise, but it seems that the praetorian tribune discovered that you’ve taken refuge with this cohort through a piece of battlefield gossip that eventually reached the wrong ears. Apparently that knowledge has already cost more than one innocent life in Rome, and the report I’ve received tells me that Perennis believes the combination of a praetorian and a corn officer will be strong enough to ensure that you’re brought to justice. Although I have to admit to being somewhat baffled as to what’s to stop a ruthless senior officer from simply putting them both in the ground and nobody any the wiser.’
Scaurus frowned.
‘While I thank you for that warning, I can’t see you having ridden this far north to deliver that unwelcome news in person.’
Licinius nodded his head, grim faced.
‘You’re right. My other intelligence for you is of a rather more pressing nature, and concerns a Venicone king that seems to have a hard-on for your cohort.’
Scaurus gathered his senior officers in the Dinpaladyr’s great hall, its stone floor still wet where the blood that had poured from the dying elder, as he had bled out under Martos’s unforgiving stare, had been scrubbed away. Tribune Licinius took a cup of wine with Scaurus, Laenas and their senior centurions, lifting it in salute as the small
